Srinagar, Oct 10: Notwithstanding the recurring influx of trauma patients in Kashmir hospitals, there is severe dearth of orthopaedic surgeons in the health centres across the Valley, affecting the patient care severely.
 While the Jammu and Kashmir government recently created new posts for orthopaedic surgeons in a particular region, not a single position has been created for the Valley. This has infuriated the aspirants and medicos, who believe that the Valley needs more ortho surgeons in the wake of increase in trauma patients.
 Vide Govt order no 235-HME of April 19, 2010, state government created 2279 posts in the Health department in the state. At a time when Valley hospitals need sufficient number of orthopaedic surgeons the government has not created single post. In contrary the Government Hospital Gandhi Nagar, Jammu, District Hospital Udhampur and District Hospital Rajouri have got three posts with two existing B-grade posts and one new A-grade post. District Hospital Samba also has two B grade ortho posts; Government Hospital Sarwal, district hospital Poonch and district hospital Kishtwar take their tally of ortho surgeons to two each with creation of one new A grade post in each.
 District Hospital Ramban also gets a total of two Ortho surgeons posts with creation of one more B-grade post. Accident Hospital Gagwal and Chowki Chowra have been provided two ortho posts each. Thus 10 institutions in Jammu division have two or three ortho surgeon post as against only one existing post of ortho surgeons in the Valley health institutions except District hospital Handwara and Budgam.
 State government has also created 153 B-grade specialist posts in Jammu division while as 124 posts have been created in Valley.
 Several youth succumbed to their injuries in the ongoing unrest in Valley on their way to secondary and tertiary care hospitals due to lack of specialists doctors and infrastructure in periphery hospitals. One of the ill-fated is 18-year-old Shuja-ul-Islam of Anchidora, Islamabad succumbed on way to SKIMS after he received a bullet in his shoulder. He didn’t get any treatment in district hospital Islamabad. Noor-ud-Din Tantray of Palahalan, who had received a bullet in his right thigh, and Showkat Ahmad Wagay of Amargarh Sopur are other two cases, who met the same fate after they didn’t get proper treatment in their district hospitals.
 A senior orthopaedic surgeon pleading anonymity said in periphery hospitals lack of infrastructure in hospitals was compelling them to refer the most of the patients to city hospitals.
 “Due to lack of infrastructure in periphery hospitals our people are dying unnecessarily,” he said.
 He said they were not able to treat ortho patients properly in periphery hospitals.
 When contacted the director health Dr Muhammad Amin Wani feigned ignorance about the entire issue.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 IST