Either Jammu and Kashmir has reached a point of no reported cases of dental problems suffered by the people or since 2008, the number of such patients is static which requires no additional posts of Dental Surgeons to be “created” and filled or there is the usual “Chalta Hai” syndrome where ad-hocism and patch repair arrangements are made to run the dental care in the UT. It is hard to comprehend that since the year 2008, not a single post of Dental Surgeon has been advertised let alone filled to cater to the needs of the patients in Jammu and Kashmir. We have each year, a substantial number of such Doctors qualifying for the jobs but curiously, their services are not utilized and our hospitals are “proudly” been classified as scantly staffed hospitals. It may be recalled that only three days back, we reported about the similar way adopted in respect of the posts of Dermatologists whereby the ultimate sufferers were the patients. It is an admitted fact that while population is increasing and resultant new hospitals too are coming up to cater to the needs of the public, the Government due to reasons known only to it, has not advertised even a single post of Dental Surgeon. To put it in the other way, no annual assessment of these Government hospitals in respect of requirement of the requisite staff is made and therefore, no analysis of patient to Doctor ratio is made let alone taking steps to improve the same.
Our rural areas must develop and partake the fruits of the economic development which includes affordable better health care measures. In the instant case due to shortage of Dental Surgeons, large sections of our rural areas are deprived of oral health facilities . In other words, since such patients cannot afford to carry on with their dental ailments as a result, have to get treatment from the private clinics. Now, the other face of the problem is that thousands of trained dentists continue to be unemployed. Such wastage of human resources for creation of which, public money in good measure is spent, is manifestation of wrong and faulty planning. There can be no two opinions about the thrust on fighting unemployment in whichever segment expected from any Government committed to pursue a sound economic policy. When we have around 5000 jobless Dental Surgeons in Jammu and Kashmir as on date, adding to which is nearly 300 more every year, what was the plan of the UT Government in respect of employing these dental medical Graduates ? Are we rolling out these medical Graduates of specialised line every year from our medical colleges aimlessly ?
It is reported that while there are around 15000 posts for medical doctors, the number of dentists is only around 550. There is dire need of dentists in the Primary Health Centres across the UT as the number of those suffering from dental ailments is rising, the Government should devise a pragmatic policy which was comprehensive in nature and decide about how much need for dentists was there and whether our dental hospitals in urban areas were adequately staffed and whether Primary Health Centres needed such medical facilities.
There was, however, a dire need to have a holistic review of entire medical facilities in the UT and not resort to measures which were resolutions of temporary nature. What we want to bring home is that we cannot afford to keep human resources of medical area idle, untapped and unutilised, we need their services and they need employment.
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