JK infant deaths: Proposal to improve medicare pending

A plan for providing effective healthcare facilities for children, including construction of a 200-bed hospital, is pending before the Medical Education Department in Jammu and Kashmir, where over 1,400 children deaths have been reported since January last year.     

The proposal, running into seven pages, was submitted to the Government Medical College, Srinagar, which has the administrative control over all the associated hospitals in

the valley, by the head of the G B Pant Children's Hospital in May last year, according to documents of Medical Education Department accessed by PTI.

There are no records in the department to suggest that any action has been taken on the proposal which also favoured strengthening of faculty and doctors in the pediatrics wing.     

The G B Pant Hospital has been at the centre of a controversy in the Valley following reports that more than 1,400 children died at the hospital since January 1, 2011.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has announced several steps to improve the situation at the Valley's only pediatrics hospital which included construction of a 200-bed hospital near the SMHS hospital.

The measures announced this year by the state government in the wake of the controversy over infant deaths are part of the proposal submitted last year by the then head of the Children's Hospital.

Construction of a new 200-bedded Children Health Institute with provision to expansion of bed strength to 480 along with creation of super specialities in the department of pediatrics near Government Medical College Srinagar is among the key suggestions made in the document.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, in a clear indictment of his own partymen, had last month said that the state government had not utilised crores of rupees sanctioned by his ministry for construction of a new children's hospital in Srinagar.

Both Health and Medical Education Ministries in the state government are headed by Congress ministers -- Sham Lal Sharma and R S Chib -- respectively.

Azad has announced a special grant of Rs 4 crore for buying life-saving equipment for the hospital, but the equipment has not been procured.

The procurement of such equipment had been suggested as part of the proposal to set up the Children's Health Institute. Chib said since he was out of station on Sunday, he will go through the records on Monday to find out if the proposal had reached his office.