From past few years, the UT administration has been working tirelessly to ensure robust and efficient health services in Jammu and Kashmir with the focus on the goal of ‘Health for All’, the administration has been trying to ensure efficient, effective and equitable healthcare services. Introduction of AB-PMJAY–SEHAT cards by the Union Government has been a great step that has made better health care accessible to poorest of the poor of the society too. However, there are some issues that confront the populace here on this front and need to be tackled properly.
Of late medical profession has turned into a virtual gold mine for all those who are associated with it. So huge is the money in this field that not only the trained doctors but even the semiliterate quacks too are amassing wealth by either posing as doctors or simply offering some other supplementary services like clinical laboratories, diagnostic centres, X-ray clinics and the like. No wonder that a huge industry has sprung up in the Valley to prey upon the already distressed lot. Now see the irony, these ‘medical shops’ (read private clinics and diagnostic centres or nursing homes and hospitals) have spread their tentacles everywhere so much so that it has become practically impossible for the people here to conceive of a healthy life without paying some ransom to the Kashmir’s medical mafia.
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At places doctors themselves have put together some big medical centres where besides the doctors’ consultation so many other facilities like lab and diagnostic tests are offered under the same roof. In most cases, these so-called facilities are add-ons for ensuring more and more easy income for the owners. Interestingly, on paper many of these medical facilities are registered as ‘trusts’ and as such feign to be run as charities. But fact of the matter is that these are lucrative business ventures of a powerful few. Prime Minister’s Jan Arogya Yojna (PM-JAY) Sehat is a revolutionary step taken by the Union Government wherein people in need get free treatment upto Rs 5 lakhs, this scheme too is being exploited for the monetary benefit of a few. The doctors, who are on government’s pay roll, direct their patients to the clinics where they practice privately so that these clinics get that money.
While focussing to improve the health sector in J&K, it is time for the government to wake up and initiate action against these white-collared robbers who are simply sucking at the bleeding wounds of distressed and diseased Kashmir.
