Srinagar, July 7: The Government Medical College (GMC) here is holding several functions from Friday to celebrate its golden jubilee.
 According to the organizers, 1500 delegates from many countries including United States, United Kingdom, Gulf and other States are participating in these functions. They said the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, would be the Chief Guests of the function’s inaugural ceremony.
 They said marathon run, debates, skits and quiz competitions would be held during the celebrations.
 The College was established in 1959 in the Amira Kadal dispensary near Fruit Mandi Iqbal Park with the sole aim and objective of producing quality doctors who could provide better healthcare facilities to the Kashmiris and bring down the surging mortality rate, a senior faculty member told Greater Kashmir.
 “After seeing the students going for medicine studies to other states, the then Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad decided to approach the Government of India for establishing the College of medicine here,” the faculty member said.
 He said the College was first started in the Fruit Mandi and subsequently shifted to the present location on August 25, 1961, the building of which was inaugurated by Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad.  
 Every medical college has to have clinical material (patients) over which the students could receive training and gain first hand experience during their five year Bachelors in Medicine and Bachelors in Surgery. Keeping this in mind, the medical college took over the reigns of the erstwhile Drugjan now Chest Disease Hospital, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh and Lal Ded hospital in subsequent years.
 Currently, there are seven associated hospital of GMC comprising SMHS, G B Pant Children Hospital, Lal Ded, Psychiatric Disease Hospital, Chest Disease, Sanat Nagar Maternity, Bone and Joint Barzulla and Chittaranjan Mobile Hospital, the member said adding these hospitals had the total bed strength of 2300.
 The college, he said has produced more than 5000 doctors, 1500 postgraduates and about 5000 paramedics. “It has not only provided manpower for our rural health services, but serves as the back bone of providing manpower to other medical schools of the State including GMC Jammu, SKIMS, JVC and ASCOMS,” he said adding many of the College pass outs were also working in prestigious hospitals and medical schools across the globe.
 “During the past ten years, the doctors in GMC hospitals attended 1.3 million patients. The gynecology and obstetrics department delivered 2.5 lakh babies during the same period with meager maternal mortality of less than 200 during the same period,” he said, adding the hospitals had also performed 41,000 surgeries, 6.5 lakh laboratory tests, two lakh x-rays, 37,000 USGS, 60,000 ECGS, 9,000 CT and MRI imagings respectively. He said the postgraduate intake capacity in the college had also increased from 86 to 102, adding most of the PG courses were now recognized by Medical Council of India and efforts were on to achieve 100 per cent recognition this year.
 He said the work on state- of- the- art Trauma Center was apace adding, Psychiatry hospital had also been modernized.
 The state-of-art Gastroenterology laboratory, he said, had already been established with all possible modern gadgetry.
 He said a Cathlab and dialysis facilities were also available to the patients, adding the hospital had two MRIs,
 He said the Department of Dermatology has started full-fledged dermato-surgery. They have done more than 140 cases of hair transplant successfully and PTSG for vitiligo patients, dermabrasion and other procedures, he added.(GKNN)

Lastupdate on : Thu, 7 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 7 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 8 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST