Continuous upgrade of GMC services; Govt’s prime concern: Chief Secretary

SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on sunday had a detailed review of the critical infrastructure and services being provided across the associated hospitals of medical colleges besides assessing the status of faculty and courses offered in each of these colleges.

The Chief Secretary, while chairing a meeting held in this regard, thoroughly analysed the progress achieved in introduction of specialisation courses (MD/MS, DM/MCH and DNB), increase of 50 MBBS seats in new medical colleges, status of faculty recruitment and strengthening of the tertiary care services in all the newly established GMCs.

The meeting besides Secretary, H&ME was attended by Director, SKIMS; Principals of GMC, Srinagar, Jammu, Anantnag, Baramulla, Kathua, Doda, Rajouri, Udhampur, Handwara; MD, JKMSCL; Director, Coordination (Medical Colleges); Director Health, Jammu/Kashmir besides other concerned officers.

The Chief Secretary impressed upon the department to continuously endeavour to upgrade their services especially the tertiary care services like critical care, emergency, neurological, cardiac care, cancer care, kidney care and radiology services by these health institutions.

He impressed upon the Principals of the medical colleges to create a timeline on the basis of infrastructure and manpower available to introduce such high-end services in these colleges. He advised them to dovetail their available resources to meet such requirements along with taking the much needed assistance from SKIMS and GMCs at Jammu and Srinagar.

He stressed on taking swift measures to augment services in the identified critical care services to save lives of the patients by making timely interventions. He impressed upon them to receive the requisite handholding from the SKIMS or GMC Jammu/Srinagar with respect to training of staff besides acquiring the small equipments, necessary consumables to deal with such exigencies.

The Chief Secretary further enquired from each Principal of the medical college about the new specialized courses like MD/MS, DM/MCH, and DNB successfully introduced in their colleges along with the applications made to NMC this year. He called for serious perusal of these applications as per set norms to secure the NMC approval before the next academic year.

As far as the introduction of additional 50 MBBS seats are concerned, the Chief Secretary stressed on securing the requisite faculty. He urged them to fill all the entry level posts of Assistant Professors besides taking steps like hiring of staff on academic arrangement where there are no feasible candidates available to fill higher positions of Professors and Associate Professors through conduction of DPCs.

Dulloo also reviewed status of the functioning of each medical college besides availability of infrastructure in each college and the associated hospital. He also enquired about the completion of critical care infrastructure raised under PM-ABHIM in each of them along with the newly established blocks in associated hospitals of these GMCs.

Secretary, H&ME, Dr Syed Abid Rashid Shah, while throwing light on the status and functioning of these colleges, informed the meeting that a total of 391 applications have been submitted to enhance the seat availability for MD/MS, DM/MCH and DNB programs across various medical colleges. He elaborated that these included 234 applications for enhancing MD/MS courses, 129 DNB and 28 applications for introduction of DM/MCH courses across the GMCs.

He added that the approval has been received for two DM Neurology seats and 1 DNB seat each in Cardiology, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery by GMC Srinagar. He added that GMC Handwara has received approvals for 2 DNB seats in General Surgery and 5 DNB seats in General Medicine, he added.

Additionally, GMC Kathua received approvals in respect of 4 DNB seats in Anaesthesia while as IGGDC Jammu has received permission for starting 3 seats in Public Health Dentistry, the meeting was informed.

Regarding enhancement of additional 50 MBBS seats in new medical colleges, he informed that applications have been submitted by all the nine medical colleges of the UT and a couple of them had been inspected recently while others are waiting for the NMC inspection for approval.

With respect to faculty recruitment in New Medical Colleges, the meeting was informed that the vacant positions of APs had been referred to PSC for filling while those of Associate Professors and Professors are being filled by making promotions wherever feasible and taking candidates on academic arrangement at other locations.

As far as the progress on major infrastructure and development projects is concerned, the meeting was informed that the work on key infrastructure projects is being expedited.

It was further given out that the tendering and work allocation under the PM ABHIM scheme has been completed with work apace on these projects. He also mentioned that the work on all the critical care blocks including 2 100-bedded CCBs and 7 50-bedded CCBs, along with 20 DIPHLs and 236 Block Public Health Units (BPHUs) is in progress.