A woman delivering on the road after doctors, and the newborn freezing to death, is an upsetting situation. The tossing of pregnant women, from a far-flung village of Kupwara District from one hospital to another, before she reached Srinagar reflects the rot that has set in the hospital administration in the State. That the health sector in the state is in a shambles is an old story, it manifests itself in the child mortality in the children hospitals, administering spurious injections, failure to provide pre-natal and post-natal care to babies, and mothers, unsanitary conditions in the hospital taking toll of human lives. The state every time after a mishap promises to hold an inquiry into the incident and to enforce discipline in the hospital administration, to bring an attitudinal change in the department; but then the things remain the same. Nonetheless, the state has not so far substantially done anything for carrying out an audit of the hospital administration, and plugging the loopholes. Minus carrying out raids on some doctors doing private practice during their duty hours under media blitz the government has not done anything for ensuring the optimum performance of doctors during duty hours. Government is yet to bring the doctors referring patients from a public hospital to private, within the ambit of anti-corruption law. Besides disciplining of aberrant medicos, there is a need for upgrading and increase human resource; particularly specialists and super-specialists in districts and sub-district hospitals more.
At the national level a lot is being done under ambitious schemes like Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) and Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA), for the pregnant women. But in the state, some of the medical centres in the rural areas do not have even the necessary facilities. In some of the sub-district and district hospitals, there are no gynecologists and obstetricians in position. Also if there is one the services are available for four to five hours during day time. In many districts against available vacancies of six obstetricians, only one or two are posted, and their services also are not optimally used. It is time, besides implementing PMMVY and PMSMA, the government should fill the vacant posts of gynecologists and obstetricians in all hospitals.