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| As medical arrangement under BADP turns defunct, people of border areas suffer | | More than 50% doctors leave their jobs | | Jehangir Rashid
SRINAGAR, July 6: Thanks to the apathy of state government a flagship programme aimed at providing quality medicare to the needy people of border areas is dying a slow death. The programme started during the tenure of People’s Democratic Party-Congress coalition government in 2003 has virtually turned defunct.
When Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was the Chief Minister of the State, 13 mobile medical units were constituted to provide medicare to the people living in border areas of the Kashmir valley. These mobile medical units were constituted under the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) with army also providing help. Under the programme a doctor, a pharmacist and a driver constituted a team. The team would visit the villages located near the border and get to know about the medical needs of the people living in the villages. The team would have the services of an ambulance available and they would ferry the patients in this ambulance. The team members also distributed medicines among the patients.
The mobile medical units were constituted for the villages of Gurez, Tulail, Machil, Tangdhar, Keran, Uri, Satura, Khag, Zachaldara, Sogam, Kralpora and Rihama. The salary of the staff appointed under BADP was debited to the official account of Director Health Services, Kashmir. Joint Director, Planning and Statistics, Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir was designated as the Director for the programme.
On the other hand it was the duty of the army officials to ensure that there is no security threat to the appointed officials and they have free access to visit the villages with most of them located near the Line of Control. The mobile medical units reached the far off areas with medicines also being provided to the patients.
Despite rendering services in the border areas the members of mobile medical units were not given the border allowances. In 2008 after repeated requests the state government sanctioned for the payment of border allowances to the members of mobile medical units. However, the allowances were never paid thus pushing the appointees to the wall.
The non-payment of allowances discouraged the appointees with the major chunk of doctors leaving their jobs. Some of the pharmacists and drivers also left their jobs with the entire system turning topsy-turvy. As on date only five doctors are part of the BADP mobile medical units while as number of pharmacists and drivers are 11 and nine respectively. Under this arrangement a doctor gets a monthly honorarium of Rs. 14,600 while as the honorarium for pharmacist and driver is Rs. 7,600 and Rs. 2,500 respectively.
Over the past three years the programme has virtually come to a halt as the ambulances are not available to the mobile medical units. The basic reason for this is that there are no funds to carry out the repairs of the ambulances since they are gone through lot of wear and tear. No medicines are available whatsoever and as such the basic purpose of this programme has been lost over the years.
Furthermore, salaries are pending since March this year and the day is not far when this arrangement shall cease in the real sense. It is due to the failure of this arrangement that people living in the border areas of Kashmir are not entitled to quality medicare more so during the harsh months of winter. |
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