The Srinagar Master Plan 2035, is taking steps to ensure less referrals from other districts and develop a vigourous healthcare system by proposing four state-of-art trauma units to be established in four directions of the city.
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“The City is strategically located at the centre of Kashmir valley making it accessible from all the districts and has many specialized healthcare facilities used by the local and regional population,” it said.
However, the SMP – 2035 said the urban healthcare scenario in Srinagar city has seen visible improvement during the last two decades with the creation of multi-speciality healthcare services for the whole province. “There is a need for robust healthcare infrastructure in the local area as it serves the whole valley in terms of higher-order social services especially healthcare”, it added.
It mentions, unlike the city, the healthcare facilities across the valley are comparatively very poor that increases the possibility of a referral system from district hospitals to tertiary hospitals in Srinagar. Keeping the facts in view, the said Master Plan recommends there is a need to provide equality and affordable infrastructure to the growing urban and rural population across all districts and tehsils.
As per the Master Plan, the average doctor-patient ratio in district and sub-district hospitals is quite low requiring institutional redressal for enhancing the quality of the healthcare system.
Other Changes
It proposed few broad strategies including establishing easily accessible primary healthcare units in each planning unit as per the standards mentioned in Development Code, 2016 of the said master plan, physiotherapy and fitness centres should be established in each planning unit to control diseases related to lifestyle modifications, obstetric health units should be evenly distributed throughout the city and should cater to normal deliveries and identify high-risk deliveries for referral to the obstetric hospital wherein each unit should have in-build state of art neonatology services to cater to the newborn, dedicated and fully equipped ambulance services must connect basic health units with advanced health units and the quality of health services offered in the existing hospitals should be improved in terms of hygiene and treatment offered.
The document also proposed bed capacity across different healthcare verticals including dispensaries, health sub-centre, community health centre, sub-district hospital, district hospital, general hospital, multi-speciality hospital and trauma hospital to 7745 beds.
It also proposes re-structuring of overall healthcare infrastructure both horizontally and vertically. The data gathered from the Department of Health Services, Kashmir unveils that there are 3015 beds available in Srinagar city while 346 beds are available in the adjoining parts with total bed strength of 3361 for a population of 1.90 million in 2015. Aiming at 25 beds per 10,000 populations, the said Master Plan will have a total requirement of 7500 beds which implies an additional requirement of 4139 beds over the next twenty years.
It added the Department of Health shall come up with a Healthcare Policy focusing on enhancing efficiency in service delivery across all verticals. Improved doctor-patient ratio and bed-patient ratio shall be the basic parameter of the healthcare system. The Master Plan precisely envisages to up-grade the healthcare infrastructure at PHCs, CHCs and Sub-District Hospitals. The bed strength at these levels is increased from about 700 beds to 2700 beds during the horizon period of twenty years.
Besides, three 500-bedded District Hospitals one each in Budgam, Ganderbal and Pampore town are also proposed. It also proposed the Sub-district Hospital Magam, Chattergam and Chadoora be upgraded to 200 bedded hospital, Gousia Hospital Khanyar to be upgraded to 200 bedded hospital by in-situ up-gradation and PHC Khrew, Khunmoh, Lal Bazar, Ompora, Brien, Noorbagh, Batamaloo, Chanapora, Soibugh, Narbaletc to be upgraded to 200 bedded hospital each.
The draft recommends the Government take a holistic view of health and education policies to ensure that necessary legal and regulatory framework is put in place for establishing a world-class and par excellent education and healthcare infrastructure.