JAMMU: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today took a holistic review of the position of essential supplies and the status of paramedical courses offered across different healthcare institutions of the UT of J&K.
The meeting, besides the Administrative Secretary, Health & Medical Education was also attended by the Principals of Medical Colleges; MD, JKMSCL; Director Health Services Kashmir/Jammu and other HoDs of the Department.
During the meeting, the Chief Secretary took note of the steps followed by the J&K Medical Supplies Corporation for floating tenders to acquire drugs, equipment and other machinery for the hospitals. He asked for looking into shortening the time period considerably to get such vital supplies for health care institutions.
He further asked for the framing Essential Drug List (EDL) by each CMO for its early supply to the hospitals besides standardization of the essential equipment list across the healthcare facilities of the UT. He even took notice of the working of the Drugs & Vaccine Distribution Management System (DVDMS) Portal dealing with the purchase, inventory management & distribution of drugs, disposables, and other necessary materials besides machinery & equipment to various drug warehouses.
Regarding the imparting of different degree and diploma courses in Paramedical Sciences, the Chief Secretary asked about the functionality of the newly established nursing colleges and paramedic schools in different districts of J&K. He enquired about the kind of physical infrastructure available at each such facility along with the presence of faculty/tutors imparting training there.
Dulloo observed that since the Department has introduced these courses admitting hundreds of students each year, it is therefore its primary responsibility to ensure their professional upbringing and fruitful engagement for the duration of the courses. He also reviewed the status of infrastructure and manpower in the institutions.
The Chief Secretary also took stock of the recruitment rules, recruitment process and scope of career development in the courses offered by the paramedic schools. He called for taking measures to augment the necessary infrastructure and arranging manpower to make such institutions viable and sustainable in the long run.
In his presentation, the Secretary H&ME, Dr Syed Abid Rasheed Shah highlighted different achievements, ongoing works and plans of the department regarding pacing up the tendering process in JKMSCL and the upgradation of facilities in different paramedical institutions here.
While giving an overview of the working of the corporation, he said that the Department is seriously contemplating cutting down the time taken in the tendering process considerably. He also revealed that the capacity of PHCs/HWCs is built to include them as users on the DVDMS portal.
Regarding the functioning of Paramedical Institutions, he informed the meeting that most of such institutions had been established in the last few years. He asserted that the Department is continuously working on making these institutions better and productive with each passing year.
It was given out that currently, the Department operates 28 B.Sc Nursing Colleges and 19 Paramedical Institutions including those in the private sector. It was said that the overall intake capacity of these institutions is 1485 and 1660 seats respectively besides adding 143 M.Sc Nursing seats in various institutions of J&K.
It was further elaborated that J&K has a total of 5 New B-Pharmacy institutions with overall intake capacity of 340 seats. It also offers admission to 668 candidates in various B.Sc paramedic courses in different Medical Colleges across the UT, the meeting was informed.
