Calling for immediate restoration of flood-hit healthcare infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President and Member Parliament, Ms Mehbooba Mufti today said the Government of India must without any delay step-in to revamp, on priority, the dilapidated medicare facilities in the State and ensure adequate supply of quality drugs to the patients.Speaking at the Parliamentary Consultative Committee meeting on Health and Family Welfare, Mehbooba urged the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan to announce special financial package for rebuilding critical care infrastructure in health sector which has been severely damaged by the floods at almost all the leading hospitals in Kashmir.“Most of the vital diagnostic equipments including CT Scans, X-Ray Plants, Laboratories and blood banks at Srinagar’s referral hospitals - SMHS, Bone and Joints, Lal Ded, JVC and GB Pant – have suffered immense damage due to floods and the same needs to be restored on priority,” she said and added that given the magnitude of the damages, the situation calls for both material and technical intervention, sooner the better, from the Government of India to bring the health sector back on rails.
She said as the flood tragedy has reiterated the urgency of having sufficient manpower in health sector, the Government of India should ask the Medical Council of India (MCI) to relax the norms for J&K so that the newly sanctioned five medical colleges are made functional immediately to cope up with the shortage of doctors in future. She said ironically the doctor-patient ratio in Kashmir is 1:1000 far below the World Health Organization (WHO) standard doctor-patient ratio of 1:500.“There is also a pressing need for not only opening more medical colleges in the State, but it should have more paramedical institutes like nursing colleges as well,” she said and added that in the aftermath of the flood tragedy the Government of India should give a serious thought to the PDP’s proposal for setting up an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Kashmir as has been done in various other states. She also demanded setting up of National Institute of Public Health in J&K.
Mehbooba also stressed the need for strengthening referral healthcare facilities at the district level by setting up integrated super-specialty, trauma, maternity, pediatric and other such institutions in the peripheries so that the patient rush is lessened at existing facilities in the urban centres. “A major crisis witnessed during floods was that due to complete breakdown of the healthcare infrastructure in Srinagar and lack of connectivity, the patients had to be perted to less equipped hospitals both within and outside the city,” she said and added that availability of integrated healthcare facilities in the peripheries could help in coping up with the crisis-like situations in the event of any natural calamity.
PDP President said another major area of concern is that while funds are being provided under NRHM for construction of buildings like OPD Blocks, IPD Blocks, Operation Theatres etc, no commensurate budgetary allocation is made available for equipping these structures with the matching healthcare infrastructure. “While making allocation of funds for construction of buildings, funds have to be simultaneously made available for installation of requisite infrastructure like diagnostic equipment and blood banks at these new centres so that these facilities are put to proper use without delay,” she said and added that otherwise these structures prove useless with in-fructuous expenditure.
Mehbooba said due to massive damage to major medical stores in Kashmir because of floods, there is a pressing need for ensuring adequate drug supplies to hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir especially for patients suffering from life-threatening diseases cancer, cardiac problems, diabetes, kidney problems, maternity problems and psychiatric disorders etc. “A drug bank should be created both at the provincial and district-levels to ensure speedy availability of quality life-saving drugs and surgical support on subsidized rates to the patients,” she said and added that at the same time it should be ensured that no flood-affected drugs are channeled to the hospitals as it could prove hazardous for the hapless patients.
Mehbooba also called for moving the health sector from a “cure” to a “care” model. She called for introducing “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” which seeks to link the quality of care with the cost of care. “This law must seek to rebalance the system’s resource allocation and reward the value of care over volume of care,” she said.She also called for focusing on primary healthcare with thrust on public-private participation in tertiary and super-specialty arenas.The other issues raised by Mehbooba at the meeting include appointment of a nodal officer by the Union Health Ministry for every state to liaise with the State Governments for effective delivery of various centrally sponsored healthcare programs, subsidized health insurance cover for the people living below poverty line, curbing inflow of spurious drugs, providing fully equipped critical care ambulances at all the district hospitals and release of wages to the staff employed under NRHM.The Union Health Minister assured the PDP President that her suggestions would be given a serious thought.