Long queues of patients at ticket counters, chaotic scenes outside OPD room and emergency areas jam packed with patients. These are common scenes on any given day at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), the premier tertiary care hospital in Kashmir, and last hope for patients suffering from any kind of ailment.
The institute has witnessed manifold increase in the patient load over past one decade. But at the same time there has been minimal addition to infrastructure and manpower to handle this ever growing rush, hitting the healthcare delivery. As per hospital records, 4.74 lakh patients were seen in OPD in 2009. The number more than doubled to 10 lakh by 2017.
Similarly, 52,000 patients were admitted at the institute in 2009. This number rose to 69,000 patients in 2017. While 15,000 surgeries were conducted at the hospital in 2009, this number grew to 23,000 surgeries in 2017. During this time just 200 beds were added to the hospital while increase in staff was “marginal”, said a senior official in hospital administration.
For quite some time the institute has been in news for shortage of resident staff. Being the highest paid hospital in Kashmir, there should have been no dearth of medicos willing to join at the institute but for ill-conceived policies. In 2017 when SKIMS abolished junior residency, a position where MBBS doctors would be incorporated to provide cushion to constrained doctor strength, there was uproar. The junior residency posts were changed to senior residency positions. Only doctors with post graduation were eligible to apply.
However, most of these posts remained vacant as the pool of doctors with specialisation was limited. This in turn had drastic impact on patient care. The move dealt a blow to academics as well as the existing system would offer junior doctors an opportunity to hone their skills under guidance of senior and more experienced medicos at the institute, as per senior faculty members. In May this year after hue and cry, junior residency was revived and many a vacant positions of medicos filled.
However, at the higher level, there has been no significant improvement in staff strength. While vacant faculty positions in 40 departments were advertised at least on two occasions since 2012, six years on, these positions are yet to be filled. As a result, most of these departments are reeling under gross shortage of faculty, drastically affecting patient care as well as academics.
Being a premier medical education Institute for post graduation and higher education, the shortage of faculty is telling upon quality of education, as per faculty. Sample this: Medical oncology department, the only one in entire Kashmir and catering to escalating load of cancer patients has just one faculty member while department of emergency medicine has two faculty members.
The department of physical medicine and rehabilitation is without faculty while department of nuclear medicine has just one faculty member. The situation is alike department of radiological physics and bio-engineering. In departments of biochemistry, pharmacology and microbiology there are one, one and two faculty members in position respectively.
The interviews for filling these positions were completed in May this year, and it was expected that selection list would be made public in a week time a day, as has been the norm.
However, it has been three months and the aspirants for the posts who have applied years ago and who have been waiting for a final verdict on their selection at the Institute are still waiting.
Last month, SKIMS released a “partial selection list”, promoting the faculty already working with it to higher posts they had applied for. However, this selection list didn’t add anything in terms of manpower as it was just change in nomenclature and salary for existing human resource of SKIMS.
Those aspirants, who have pinned their hopes to get placement in SKIMS and a chance to serve their own people, have been left in lurch. “Owing to the long prevailing ambiguity, our career is at stake,” a delegation of aspirants told Greater Kashmir. “We are not taking up opportunities outside the state thinking we might be selected here.
How long will the government make us suffer like this?” Last month, then Governor NN Vohra sought a report on recruitment process and selections for faculty positions. Although the report was filed two weeks ago, there is no word on making the final selections. “Is there no accountability in health sector? Due to indecisiveness and apathy of authorities, why should we suffer and why should patients suffer for want of doctors,” a distraught candidate questioned.
Not just faculty, and doctors, SKIMS, which was originally set-up as a state-of-art institute for training, research and patient care and later given the status of deemed university, is facing a gross shortage of nurses, paramedical staff, technicians and allied human resource. The institute recently moved proposal for selections of 250 more nurses and a corresponding increase in number of dressers, para medics and technicians.
The official said the institute is expanding, opening new centers like State Cancer Institute, upgrading maternity hospital and making new facilities available to patients. “But can we deliver effectively without corresponding increasing in human resource?” he asked. In January this year, state government constituted a high level committee to “improve” functioning of SKIMS.
The high level committee had the mandate to “monitor functioning of the institute, and recommend measures, as would be required from time to time to improve its overall functioning”. Although nothing has come out about impediment zeroed on by the committee in proper functioning, for most doctors at the institute, the shortage of manpower ails SKIMS the most.