Opinion | Health care delivery in Jammu & Kashmir

Opinion | Health care delivery in Jammu & Kashmir

It is rightly said that “Health is Wealth”, health is the most important asset of a human being. Today, there are improvements in the health sector of India by leaps and bounds compared to the 20th Century.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi deserves a big applause for launching the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana (AB-PMJAY) SEHAT scheme. The main aim behind the scheme is to extend health insurance coverage to all residents of Jammu and Kashmir. – Here the term SEHAT stands for Social, Endeavour for Health and Telemedicine.

RecentlyJammu and Kashmir government reiterated its commitment to provide quality health care services to the people of J&K. It is nice that the Jammu & Kashmir government is eyeing investment of over Rs4,000 crore in the medical sector with a twin purpose of enhancing medical facilities as well as increasing availability of hospital beds and MBBS seats in the Union territory.Jammu and Kashmir has become the first among Indian states and UTs to offer free health insurance to all its residents.There are 20,306 government hospitals in the country. Rajasthan leads with 3,145 hospitals and Jammu and Kashmir stands at the number two with 2,812 hospitals.Government Hospitals provide health care free for the Indian citizens. In Jammu and Kashmir there are also the hospitals run by the State. However the people complaint more about poor healthcare facilities.At present the state has over 5800 doctors, 12855 hospital beds in the government institutions and private aided institutions, including 4 Medical Colleges, 22 District Hospitals, 2 Ayurvedic hospitals, 273 Ayurvedic dispensaries, 2 Unani hospitals, 235 Unani dispensaries.

Govt institutions need to upgrade their services at par with the upcoming private hospitals to retain the tag of major service provider in J & K. It is to be appreciated that the National Health Mission and the National Rural Health Mission are institutions set up by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and function at a national and state level with an aim of providing basic health care delivery system to all areas of Jammu, including the interiors of Jammu.
There are hospitals in India excelling in standards when compared to any hospital in the UK or the US. There are skilled surgeons and physicians in India who have made a mark in their respective fields. But the most unfortunate thing is, the services of these surgeons and physicians have not reached all sections of the population.Many villages are devoid of any health centres and if they are present, their effectiveness is limited due to the shortage or unavailability of staff, insufficient medicines, and infrastructure problems, among others. This means that for a medicine as basic as paracetamol, villagers have to walk four kilometres up and down the hilly trail.
This Healthcare Investment Policy aims to realize the UT’s obligation of providing quality and effective healthcare to its citizens and to take healthcare service to the door steps of the masses so as to ensure availability of the complete gamut of healthcare services in the primary, secondary and tertiary care sectors to the people of the UT. In order for people to maintain a proper health, they should have proper health care systems. Only then people will be able to take care of their health and get treatment when they are suffering from any sort of sickness.

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