Irshad Hussain/ Kounsar Bashir
While the world marks Doctors Day on July 1, the Jammu Kashmir administration has failed to advertise the posts for Dental Surgeons of Jammu and Kashmir for thirteen years, now.
The dental surgeons have to say that there’s an addition of graduates every year, and the situation has become challenging.They also added that now the government should frame the job policies with regard to dental surgeons so that the graph of unemployed dental surgeons gets down.
While speaking to The Kashmiriyat a dental surgeon, Dr. Farhan, who represents the Kashmir Zone of Dental Surgeons said that they are not even provided a contractual scheme.
“We are around 7000 dental surgeons in Jammu Kashmir and the administration has assured for recruitment. But till now, nothing happened on ground. Not all can open their clinics, as it requires a hefty amount,” Dr Farhan said.
“Most of the people in Jammu and Kashmir cannot afford to go for private clinics because the economy of the erstwhile state has already been hit during the continuous lockdowns,” he added.
Dr. Arif Iqbal, who represents Dental Surgeon Association Jammu Kashmir from Jammu province, while talking to The Kashmiriyat said, “We are at an indefinite strike since past 11 days and no one from administration came to talk to us.”
He, further, stated that as per the population ratio of World Health Organisation (WHO), in Urban areas there’s 1 doctor for 7500 patients, and in Rural areas 1 doctor for 10,000 patients but in Jammu Kashmir, there is 1 doctor for 30,000 patients.
“Since 2008, the administration of Jammu Kashmir has not recruited Dental Surgeons, which has left 7000+ Dental Surgeons unemployed.”
“In 2014, we held a 55 days hunger strike both in Jammu and in Kashmir after which, all parties gave us assurance that their governments will come and do this and that for us, but nothing has happened till now,” he said.
For the past 2 years, the centre and the state governments have said, “We are doing recruitments and want to do more. We do not have insufficiency in health,” but he says that on the other side they’ve been told that they were not a part of health.
“If the administration is giving chance to everyone by introducing veterinarian posts, medical officer posts, AYUSH posts, why are we not given any chance? We are also a part of them.”
“More than 1000 dental surgeons are over aged, without facing JKPSC even once. It is the responsibility of the administration to give them atleast one chance so that they should not feel guilty,” he added.
“Since Independence, JKPSC (Jammu Kashmir Public Service Commission) has recruited only 543 Dental Surgeons. And our population is more than one Crore,” he told The Kashmiriyat.
“After lots of efforts, File bearing no. HD/PLAN/68/2018 has been created for recruitment of Unemployed Dental Surgeons through JKPSC. But it is still circulating between Health and Finance Department, because both are saying that they don’t have the funds,” he added further.
“If there are no funds why are they building such a vast infrastructure to give patients the facility without doctors,” he said, also adding, “Today is Wold Doctors Day and here doctors are sitting on road.”