‘25 surgeries done within 24 hrs, docs worked continuously for 2 days to save precious lives’
Sanjeev K Sharma
JAMMU, Aug 17: After Operation Sindoor it was the natural calamity of Kishtwar cloudburst which tested the preparedness of medicos at the Emergency Section of Government Medical College (GMC) and Hospital Jammu, which remains the prime hope for all including the concerned authorities despite the fact that the elite All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is also very much functional at a few kilometres from Jammu.
“On August 14, 2025, we received 70 patients from Kishtwar of which only one died as he had already collapsed while lives of the other calamity hit patients were saved at GMC Jammu due to proper and timely medical care provided to them which also included a record 25 surgeries performed within 24 hours and that was the efficacy and efficiency of our doctors,” a senior doctor at GMC Jammu informed.
Another doctor who remained part of the team providing treatment to the Kishtwar victims claimed that for two days from August 14 night, the doctors handling cloudburst victims can’t sleep as they remained busy in saving the precious lives.
It is pertinent to mention here that GMC Jammu and associated hospitals face a big shortage of doctors and other medical professionals as of the sanctioned 669 gazetted posts including those of doctors, only 307 are in position at the elite medical institution of Jammu, leaving a vacancy of 362 while of the sanctioned 4754 non-gazetted posts, only 3362 are occupied here making a vacancy of 1392.
When asked, keeping in view the acute shortage of staff, how the medical institute tackles all of a sudden rush of patients like that of Kishtwar cloudburst tragedy, a senior doctor on the condition of not being named informed that they manage such challenges by proper planning and better team work as complaining the system will yield nothing in such situations.
“We have to work with the given resources as during natural calamities there is no time to complain,” he continued.
Insiders at GMC Jammu informed that those at the helms of affairs in this medical institute have written to the Government for a full-fledged Emergency Department with 147 posts with majority of doctors exclusively for handling the emergency but the matter is struck somewhere in Civil Secretariat files.
“These doctors, to be sanctioned for Emergency Department, will have nothing to do with the inpatients at wards,” they maintained adding all the reputed medical institutions have such separate Emergency Departments for handling emergency cases only.
Another doctor who mostly remains at the Emergency Section of GMC Jammu said that a wrong narrative is going on among the public that senior doctors are not present in the Emergency Section of the Hospital and the patients suffer due to that.
“Like all the reputed medical institutions, in GMC Jammu also, senior doctors come for a round and they supervise juniors and guide them properly and when some complex surgery of 3-4 hours is to be done, the same is done by the senior doctors,” he maintained.
When contacted, Principal GMC Jammu, Dr. Ashutosh Gupta informed that about 50 per cent of the work of senior doctors is to make new doctors by training them properly and in the last 50 years they have produced thousands of doctors who are now serving in almost every corner of the world.
He said that all the youngsters serving in Emergency Section of GMC are full-fledged doctors as per Medical Council of India (MCI) norms, who have completed their MBBS and are pursuing PG.
“It is a wrong public perception that those who are selected for MBBS after clearing NEET exams are directly pushed to manage Emergency Section of the hospital,” Dr. Gupta further said.
More sources informed that almost 250 patients daily visit Emergency Section of GMC Jammu and the senior doctors remain available in the hospital from 7 pm-10 pm in evening and from 10 am-1pm and whenever the young doctors are in problem, they get guidelines from the senior doctors.
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