J&K has only 2 critical care ambulances: one with Guv, one with CM

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jul 2: Three years back, eminent physician Dr Girija Dhar, who served on a host of senior positions including member of J&K State Public Service Commission from 1992 to 1995 after her retirement as Principal of Government Medical College Srinagar, suffered a minor cardiac arrest when she was in a conference chaired by Governor N.N. Vohra at SKICC. Governor did her the favour of sending her to the State’s only tertiary care hospital, Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), by his critical care ambulance (CCA). Even on that occasion, the ambulance’s ICCU was not made operational and the vehicle was used just as a carrier. That arguably was the first---and till date the last---use of the state-of-the-art critical care ambulance attached to Raj Bhawan probably since 1998.

Officials in Ministry of Health and Medical Education (H&ME) as well as Directorate of Health Services (DHS) Kashmir, including incharge of State Health Transport Organisation (SHTO) Dr Abdul Kareem, confirmed to STATE TIMES that the State government had only two CCAs. Ever since these were procured 17 years ago, one has remained attached to Governor’s cavalcade at Raj Bhawan and another to Chief Minister’s. Fortunately, there has been neither a militant attack nor any other accident or medical complication that would have led to a VVIP’s transit to a hospital by the CCA.

In fact, the State’s aircraft, or an air ambulance called from New Delhi, has been used more for recovery and carriage of a few government officials. Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah sent a Superintendent of Police Mr Zahid’s daughter to AIIMS when doctors at SKIMS declared her critical on a day in the evening. Previously, former Speaker Akbar Lone was also carried to New Delhi by the State plane.

Now Minister of Education and then Secretary to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Naeem Akhtar was privileged to fly to AIIMS by an air ambulance when he suffered a cardiac problem due to his main artery blockage. Then SP Security with Raj Bhawan Ramesh Kumar Jhalla also flew by an air ambulance though his relatives paid a sizable amount to it from their pocket.

Clearly, there is a mechanism in place for VVIPs and VIPs. But what about others? “Nothing. Death is the first possibility. If it doesn’t happen, that’s a patient’s sheer good luck”, said a senior official associated with Hospital Administration of the SKIMS. He said that some hospitals had their own fleets of ordinary ambulances but none of them had a CCA.

In 2009, when Sham Lal Sharma assumed charge as Minister of Health, he made tall claims of the acquisition of 30 CCAs, one each for all district hospitals and a few more for the trauma centres he claimed to build at some spots on Srinagar-Jammu highway. What actually arrived in was a number of Mobile Medical Units. “These are fitted with ECG machine etc. but are actually meant for the use of medical camps”, Dr Kareem explained. Some of them have been relieved of ECG and have been decaying like the one at District Hospital of Budgam.

A senior physician at SMHS Hospital elaborated that a CCA is actually supposed to be equipped with a full Intensive Care Unit. “It should have a folding emergency stretcher, stretcher-cum-trolley-cum wheelchair, scoop stretcher, a full vacuum kit filled with all kinds of splints, suction pump, resuscitation equipment, transport emergency ventilators, portable defibrillator, monitor and pacemaker, computerised ECG machine, portable vital signs monitor, gas pipelining with panel, facility for transmission of data from ambulance to the hospital, a dependable heating and AC system, refrigerator, orothoryngeal suigraph for adult children and infants, GIS, GPS and vehicle tracking system, transceivers, pulse oximeter  and a suitable oxygen inhalation equipment”, he said. Only the two with Governor and CM have some of these equipments.

In addition to two experienced physicians, each CCA needs a technical expert for handling its machinery, communication and computer equipment.

Casual plans to “upgrade” some of the already procured ordinary ambulances to so-called CCAs went haywire for six years.

Bureaucratic sources said that Omar Abdullah’s government constituted a special Task Force on Health for providing advice for upgradation and improvement of services and health infrastructure. It made several recommendations but these were never implemented for “poor deliverance” of the government. Asia’s iconic hospital administrator and creator of the prestigious SKIMS under then Chief Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s leadership, Dr A.K. Nagpal, was also associated as a key member of the health Task Force in J&K.

In a special telephonic conversation with STATE TIMES from New Delhi, Dr Nagpal revealed that the Task Force had thoroughly deliberated on the need to equip all major hospitals with a network of the modern ambulances under Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode.

“Unfortunately there has been no meeting of the Task Force after last year’s floods. I am in touch with the new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s office and Commissioner-Secretary M.K. Bhandari. There can be a breakthrough after our meeting with CM materialises”, Dr Nagpal said.

[For Dr Nagpal’s detailed interview, see a related item in this issue of STATE TIMES].

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