SRINAGAR : Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today expressed serious concern over appointment of specialist doctors as hospital administrators in Health and Medical Education because of which patients suffer immensely.
Terming it illogical, President DAK Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a statement said that engagement of specialists as administrators has deprived people, particularly in far flung areas, of specialist care.
It makes no sense to assign a job to a person for which he or she is neither qualified nor trained. It is sheer waste of talent and skill. Critical care specialists (Anesthesiologists) have been made Block Medical Officers, Chief Medical Officers and Medical Superintendants of hospitals, he said, adding, surgeons and trauma care specialists have been placed as administrators of the hospitals.
It is lack of surgeons and anesthetists that is responsible for deaths of emergency and trauma patients in peripheries and ironically they have been posted as administrators. These specialists all through their training are taught how to deal with patients and when they finish their training they are given an altogether different job, the DAK stated.
Dr Nisar said it is after years of drudgery and commitment that a specialist is produced and all his hard work goes down the drain when he is asked to do a thing which he is not meant for. It is like asking a mason to do a carpenters job.
Hospital administrator has to be qualified and trained for hospital administration which is a different field. As well as managing day-to-day business of health services, medical administrators have to oversee budgets, manage clinical workforces, oversee clinical support services and manage capital investments, reads further the DAK statement.
The DAK observed that shortage of doctors, especially specialists in peripheries is created because of this poor policy and bad planning.
Also, concentration of doctors in city hospitals leaves rural hospitals deficient of staff. The traditional recruitment process which is tedious and lengthy is compounding the issue. Because of the flawed recruitment practice, 4000 posts of doctors and paramedics are lying vacant for years now, it concluded. (PTK)
