SKIMS, the tertiary care institute of J&K, has been in the forefront of delivery of tertiary health care for the past 30 years, in spite of the testing times of the recent decades. While health care has been its major focus, SKIMS faculty has won laurels for the state in cutting edge research and running of postgraduate and postdoctoral programs, the pass-outs contributing immensely to the improved healthcare delivery in the peripheries of the UT. However, unfortunately all is not well with SKIMS. In recent times SKIMS has been losing its senior faculty at an astonishing pace threatening the very existence of the institution’s goals.
According to the SRO 283 of 2009 of J&K Government, service matters of SKIMS were brought in parity with that of AIIMS, New Delhi. However, the SRO has been implemented only partially denying the faculty important service benefits, most notably the age of superannuation. The age of superannuation in SKIMS, except for its director, is currently fixed at 62 years as against 65 years in AIIMS. As such, senior professors are leaving at a rapid pace, robbing the crucial super-specialties of the institute of at least 3 more years of their service. This preventable brain drain of experienced faculty has far reaching consequences for postgraduate programs wherein a professor level guide can guide 9 students at a time. However, upon his superannuation as per the in vogue Assessment Merit Promotion Scheme an entry level position of Assistant Professor gets created who has to invest about 7 years before he can take a single student under his guidance. The elementary maths are for anybody to see.
SKIMS and its faculty represented against this, and despite repeated assurances by heads of the erstwhile state, including the previous chief ministers and its last serving Governor, Mr. Satyapal Malik, the parity of SKIMS faculty with AIIMS has not happened. The matter was even agitated in the High Court in 2017 (SWP 2528/2017 titled Dr Khursheed Alam Wani and others versus the State of J&K) and an interim direction was passed wherein SKIMS was directed to allow the superannuating petitioners to continue beyond their current ages of retirement on their own risk till the final disposal of the case. However, the SKIMS administration managed to dissuade many of them from availing the benefit and motivating them to leave quietly. The matter is still under consideration of the High Court and the departed faculty members lament even today that the administrators played foul, and while themselves enjoying the benefit of age did not want the same to be accorded to them. This loss of SKIMS has been the gain of many a private institution in the country where as per NMC guidelines they can serve up to 70 years of age, as the country is faced with faculty shortages in medical sector.
Pertinently, SKIMS from its very inception has been governed by a separate set of service rules for its faculty in it being non-practicing in nature as also having a higher pay structure and age of superannuation (60 years as against 58 years for other medical institutions). This used to attract the best talent to the institution. However, few years back the age of all medical institutions in the state was raised to 62 years despite a clear linkage of only SKIMS faculty to AIIMS. This was repeatedly stirred up by SKIMS and the matter was finally discussed (by an interim SKIMS dispensation) in a meeting of the Standing Finance Committee, held on September 28-29, 2019, under the chairmanship of the current Chief Secretary Mr. BV Subramaniam. The SFC approved an age enhancement of superannuation for senior faculty to 65 years and consideration of the other provisos of the SRO 283 in future. SKIMS was directed to formulate a proposal for formal approval of the governing body of SKIMS, headed by the LG of the UT. However, in one of the ugliest exhibitions of red tape, the current administration inexplicably failed to synthesize one.
The bleeding institution needs an immediate tourniquet so that its threatened fabric is prevented from disintegration. Even a single day’s delay is detrimental to the health of SKIMS which in turn is pivotal to the health of the people of the UT. We cannot afford to lose the senior hands of the institution in the larger interests of teaching, patient care and research.