J&K’s health & medicare sector in shambles: Rattan Lal

Jammu, May 26: Rattan Lal Gupta, Provincial President Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) Jammu, accused the Union Territory administration of misleading the Centre regarding the deplorable condition of health and medicare including Ayush sector of J&K. He has sought the Centre’s intervention so that adequate measures are taken to address this significant and most sensitive issue of the people.
In a statement issued here, the senior NC leader said, “It is an irony that while the Prime Minister keeps on reiterating the commitment to provide benefits of government schemes to the last man standing in line, the ground realities in this Union Territory especially viz-a-viz health and medicare sector are quite contrary. The deplorable condition of this sector can be well gauged from the fact that the UT is facing a huge shortage of doctors and paramedical staff as a result of which the people continue to suffer badly.”
Divulging the details, Gupta said, “Presently, in J&K, there are 269 Public Health Centres out of which 165 centres are running completely at the mercy of God. These 165 centres have no qualified doctors and are being solely run by paramedical staff. The condition of the rest of the 84 Heath Centres is no good too as these are having no sanctioned strength of doctors available for the patients visiting these centres. The condition of village dispensaries is worse and many are closed. 1000 posts of doctors and 5000 posts of paramedical staff are lying vacant in J&K due to which the people are facing a huge deficit in medical services.”
He claimed that during the National Conference regime in the erstwhile State of J&K led by Omar Abdullah, the Health Department bagged 2nd position across the nation for providing the best health services. “But today, health and medicare is totally in shambles and people have to go out of J&K for availing medical services incurring huge costs,” he said.
Rattan Lal appealed to the Centre to look into the “most urgent and sensitive matter” of the people and direct the LG administration to take adequate steps for filling all the vacant posts in Health and Medical Department at the earliest.