The health infrastructure of J&K is standing on alarmingly fragile ground as the UT grapples with a staggering shortfall of 7,740 posts, including both gazetted and non-gazetted staff, in its nine Government Medical Colleges. The crisis does not stop here. The situation is equally worrisome across District Hospitals, Sub-District Hospitals/ Community Health Centres, and Primary Health Centres, where the severe dearth of doctors and paramedical staff is crippling patient care. These are not merely statistics but a grim reflection of a public health disaster in slow motion. The core of this crisis lies in the fact that nearly half of the sanctioned positions in these vital institutions remain vacant. For example, GMC Jammu, with a sanctioned strength of 669 gazetted posts, has filled just 307, while GMC Srinagar, the premier health institution of the Kashmir division, has 347 out of 812 gazetted posts lying vacant. The story repeats across other GMCs, with GMC Baramulla and GMC Handwara facing the worst, where more than 70 percent of the sanctioned gazetted posts are unfilled. Equally concerning is the situation of non-gazetted staff, who form the backbone of patient services – nurses, technicians, and other paramedical workers. GMC Srinagar, shockingly, has 1984 vacant non-gazetted posts while GMC Jammu has 1392 such posts unfilled. In GMC Handwara and GMC Udhampur, the non-gazetted vacancies exceed 700 and 500, respectively, severely limiting their ability to function even at a basic level.
What makes this crisis deeper is that this chronic shortage extends to district-level facilities – the first point of contact for a large chunk of the population. In the Jammu division, District Hospitals alone lack 42 Consultants, 53 Medical Officers, and 221 paramedical staff. PHCs, critical for rural and remote populations, have 181 vacant Medical Officer posts and 416 vacancies for paramedical staff. The Kashmir division tells a similar story, where PHCs face 89 vacant Medical Officer posts and 546 paramedical vacancies. For a population spread across difficult terrains, remote valleys, and isolated hamlets, these vacancies are not mere numbers – they translate to unavailability of basic healthcare.
This continuing crisis has multiple adverse effects. First and foremost, it directly affects patient care, leading to overburdened existing staff, delays in diagnosis and treatment, poor service delivery, and avoidable patient suffering. The system, stretched beyond its capacity, is left with limited bandwidth to handle emergencies, maternity care, chronic diseases, or even seasonal flu outbreaks, let alone a potential public health emergency like COVID-19.
The reasons behind this alarming vacancy situation are manifold – cumbersome recruitment processes, bureaucratic red tape, delayed Public Service Commission recruitments, limited incentives for posting in remote and border areas, and, in some cases, lack of career progression for doctors and specialists. Additionally, several newly established GMCs have been made functional without first ensuring the availability of sufficient faculty and paramedical staff, turning buildings into mere brick-and-mortar structures without the soul of healthcare delivery.
The situation calls for immediate corrective measures. Fast-track recruitment drives are the need of the hour. The Health and Medical Education Department must prioritise filling vacant posts, not just at GMCs but also in DHs, SDHs, and PHCs. Special recruitment for Consultants and specialists, combined with attractive financial and non-financial incentives, must be introduced to encourage doctors to serve in peripheral and difficult areas. Moreover, the deployment of contractual staff, if necessary, should be expedited to temporarily plug critical gaps. Equally important is creating a long-term retention strategy. Providing better working conditions, transparent promotion avenues, and accommodation facilities in remote areas could make a tangible difference. Without strengthening the human resource component of healthcare, even the most advanced infrastructure and equipment will remain underutilised.
Healthcare is not a luxury; it is a right and a necessity. The current staffing pattern, or rather the lack of it, in J&K’s health sector is undermining this right. The Government must act with urgency and foresight. The people’s health cannot and should not be allowed to become a casualty of administrative apathy.
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