Huge MO vacancies

A news item appearing in the columns of Daily Excelsior sometimes back had triggered suo moto cognizance by the High Court itself. Feeling that the Health Department was not functioning as it should in an overall estimation, the Division Bench had asked the Advocate General to furnish details of vacancies of Medical Officers in the entire State.
From the figures now furnished by the AG to the Division Bench, it is disclosed that in the Divisions of Jammu and Kashmir 1368 vacancies are lying unfilled so far. Of these 498 vacancies are in Kashmir Division and 870 in Jammu Division. AG has confirmed that 36 posts are filled out of total number of 112 and 76 are vacant in Udhampur district. This confirms the report of the Daily Excelsior and with that the Pandora’s Box has opened for public gaze.
Keeping such a huge number of posts of Medical Officers vacant in the State hospitals is a sad reflection on the performance of the State Health Department. Why have these vacancies been left unfilled is the core question. Now if the vacancies are there owing to shortage of doctors then was it not the responsibility of the Health Department to make alternate arrangement of requisitioning the services of recently retired doctors and surgeons in the State to be re-employed on temporary basis till regular recruitment of doctors was made? Why did not the Government take any step in this direction? The State could have requisitioned the services of doctors temporarily from outside the State also till a time it had its own cadres available.
But what actually is reported by knowledgeable circles is that the real problem is that of doctors unwilling to serve in rural hospitals in our state. Most of them use clout with politicians to keep them posted in urban areas particularly the city of Jammu. The reason for doing so is that in cities and towns doctors do private practice also and make good money. It is only the lust for more money that keeps the doctors located in prime destinations. In doing so, Health Department functionaries and the politicians are in nexus and they jointly manage posting of blue eyed doctors to suitable places. In this way, the district and rural hospitals and health centers remain deprived of the services of regular doctors. The media has been highlighting this serious problem with the Health Department from time to time and no foolproof solution to the problem has been found. The Government has been warned by the civil society through media and other sources that the practice of retaining doctors at stations of their choice will become a serious issue one day because the vast rural population of the State is deprived of the facility of a qualified doctor’s services.
The fact of the matter is that the civil society is spending anything between 20 to 25 lakh rupees for training a doctor for more than five years so as to make them qualified and experienced. Most of these young doctors come from middle and lower middle classes of our society. They should have more inclination to serve the poorer and weaker sections of society. Unfortunately, the reverse is the case. This should give space to the Government to impose certain conditions on newly qualified doctors before they are formally appointed in the service of the Health Department. At one point of time this issue was taken up and many pious sentiments were expressed but the purpose was not obtained.
Lastly, the question of increasing the seats in Medical Colleges of the State and also of nominees to Medical Colleges outside the State needs to be revisited. Not to speak of having the world established doctor-patient ratio, we need at least the Indian standard ratio.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here