Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, Oct 6: The State has deficiency of 1,757 health institutions and over 6700 vacancies of employees including doctors in Health and Medical Education Department, reveals information provided by the department to Legislative Assembly.
As per the records provided to the Legislative Assembly by the Health Department, these deficiencies in health sector have been pointed out by using Geo-Informatics System based on catchment area, travel time, population coverage and existing health institutes across the State.
The information provided to the Assembly reveals that Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir, lacks 42 Community Health Centres (CHC’s), 122 Primary Health Centres (PHC’s) and 898 Sub-Centres (SC’s) as per population norms. Similarly, the Directorate of Health Services, Jammu, is deficient by 22 CHC’s, 79 PHC’s and 594 SC’s.
The Government also admits that there is deficiency of 238 Sub Centres in 18 districts including Doda(8), Kishtwar (19), Ramban(13), Udhampur (28), Bandipora (5), Baramulla(7), Kupwara(12), Jammu(1), Reasi (35), Anantnag (2), Budgam(2), Kulgam(17), Kathua (34), Poonch (20), Rajouri (21), Kargil (5), Leh(6) and Shopian(3).
However, the information provided by the Department is contradictory as the Government in an earlier written reply has said these 238 Sub-Centre deficiencies have been found by Directorate of Remote Sensing through mapping survey which otherwise do not qualify the population norms.
The Government has not given a fixed date when these health institutes will be constructed to address the problems faced by people across the State, instead the Government vaguely said it is “considering to open up” these new health centres in deficient areas after assessing the requirement and feasibility, adding, the issue has been taken up with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
Having such a huge dearth of health institutes, the Government said it has a proposal of opening only 400 new Sub-Centres in the State.
The Health Department records suggest that the total financial implications involved with opening up these 1, 757 health centres amounts to Rs. 552.11 crore under recurring and non-recurring including Rs 184.52 crore for opening 238 Sub-Centres.
About the deficiency of employees in Directorate of Health Services across the state, the records suggest 4186 posts including those of doctors and paramedics are vacant.
Similarly, in Medical Education sector, the hospitals associated with Government Medical Colleges in the State have 2,581 vacant posts, including 2,127 in non-gazetted and 454 in gazetted categories.
As per the records, the total number of posts referred to recruiting agencies of Service Selection Board and Public Service Commission, are 3,665 posts including 938 gazetted and 2717 non-gazetted.
The dearth of employees is not only affecting the health and medical education, but also the Indian System of Medicine Department which has 41 vacant posts in non-gazetted and 10 in gazetted categories.
Records suggest that Drug and Food Control Organization has 83 vacant posts in non-gazetted and 19 in gazetted category.
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