Srinagar: Twelve more seats have been sanctioned by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Science (NBEMS) under DNB for the public institutions of J&K, an official press release informed Wednesday
It said these seats shall be in addition to the earlier granted 270 DNB seats.
As per the detailed breakup, Srinagar Hospital received approval for two seats in Orthopedics; GMC Rajouri two seats in Paediatrics; DH Poonch 2 seats in Surgery, DH Reasi 2 seats in General Medicine and Department of Anesthesiology GMC Baramulla was given accreditation for starting DNB courses with an intake of 4 PGs, 2 primary DNB and 2 Secondary DNB seats per year.
Secretary of Health & Medical Education Department, Bhupinder Kumar, congratulated the entire Health and Medical Education Department for this achievement. He expressed happiness over the fact that even far-flung facilities like DH Poonch and DH Reasi have been able to start Post Graduate courses in these hospitals.
Ayushi Sudan, Mission Director, NHM J&K, while giving details about the development, said that implementation of DNB courses at the district level in J&K has been termed as a best practice in the country.
Under DNB programme in the UT, a total of 270 seats were granted to the accredited departments during session 2022 and the start of 2023 consequent to the concerted efforts and hard work of the administrative department H&ME J&K, NHM J&K, and the team of health institutions being monitored by Bhupinder Kumar, Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department.
“All the efforts are being made to scale up the DNB courses in all the District Hospitals and potential CHCs of J&K. During the upcoming session, J&K is planning to submit more than 30 applications in all District Hospitals,” she added.
Earlier in the month of March, 20 seats were approved in the UT of J&K in which Government Medical College Srinagar received approval for 2 seats in FNB Paediatric Anesthesia. JLNM Hospital, Srinagar received 3 Post MBBS DNB seats in General Surgery, DH Udhampur received a sanction of 5 seats under Pediatrics, General Medicine, and Orthopedics. DH Poonch received 2 seats in General Medicine. DH Ganderbal got a sanction of 2 seats each in DNB General Medicine & Diploma Pediatrics. DH Kulgam received 2 seats in Family Medicine and CHC Kupwara got 2 seats in Diploma Pediatrics.
Pertinent to mention that the DNB (Diplomate of National Board) courses have been introduced in the District Hospitals and new Government Medical Colleges besides old GMCs and SKIMS in order to strengthen the institutions, and decongest the Govt. Medical Colleges and to address the shortage of specialists in the UT of J&K.
Implementation of DNB courses has led to an equitable distribution of health care services and manpower especially in far-flung and hard-to-reach areas and is beneficial to the population which has very meager access to health care services in their areas, leading to low referrals from DNB institutions to Tertiary care institutions thereby further decreasing the Out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) of the patients.
