While the state government recently issued orders to all hospitals in J&K to prominently display the list of diagnostic tests available to improve facilities for patients, the huge number of defunct diagnostic equipment due to lack of trained manpower and poor maintenance puts a question mark over the services that are being offered to patients.
In many hospitals of Kashmir, equipment worth crores is lying defunct for want of maintenance and repairs, an official in health and medical education department said. The official said that due to lack of maintenance contracts, even a minor snag in costly equipment is not repaired in time and that renders the machine unusable.
Citing an example, he said that last year, a high end CR System, an imaging test, worth Rs 15 lakh was installed in sub-district hospital Tral. However, he added, the machine developed an error and has not been used for the past six months.
Similarly, in JLNM Hospital, as per the official, a Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) worth Rs 70 lakh is lying defunct due to lack of trained staff to run the high end equipment. “The story repeats itself across hospitals of Kashmir. We have equipment but it is not available for tests due to one or the other reason,” he said.
In 2016, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India pointed out the huge wastage of public money in state’s hospitals due to defunct equipment.
As per a source in the health department, there were three issues that led to hospital equipment rendered unusable and making patients suffer.
“Either the administration involved in the purchase of equipment does ensure the necessary maintenance contract with the suppliers, or the equipment is deliberately rendered defunct to help private labs earn extra bucks, or there is no manpower to run the equipment,” he said.
The official said that a recent government order necessitating display of the list of available tests in hospitals would not achieve anything till there was a “thorough audit” of all the hospitals and their equipment.
“The CAG report of 2016 was the tip of the iceberg. Our government needs to see how much the patients are benefitting after crores are spent on hospital equipment with a thorough auditing,” he said.
“Public money is pumped into equipment, but public is directed from hospitals to private labs with the excuse that equipment is not running,” he said.
Last year, the Government of India think-tank NITI Aayog had noted “constrained fiscal space within states to allocate increased resources for healthcare including NCDs, large infrastructure gaps especially in rural areas and significant gaps in human resources at the level of specialists” as a major impediment in delivery of health facilities. It had proposed a public-private partnership to states, including J&K, to pave way for entry of private players to improve availability of diagnostic facilities.
Commissioner secretary health and medical education Atal Dulloo acknowledged the unavailability of services, including diagnostics at many places. He said that the government was in the process of finalising a service provider for biomedical equipment maintenance.
“That will take care of the technical snags in hospital equipment and help running services smoothly,” he said. He added that directorates of health services had been directed to “rationalize staff” and ensure that wherever the equipment was available, it was operational.
