Reports come in daily about people living in Uttarakhand’s hills and mountains having to struggle to obtain basic medical facilities. Much too often, patients in critical condition never manage to make it to a hospital capable of dealing with their condition. It is a pattern – first be carried by family and villagers over the several kilometre long track from the village to the road head on foot, then take whatever transport is available to the closest community health centre. Often there is no doctor or necessary equipment available, and the patient is referred to a ‘higher centre’. At best, an ambulance is arranged, which for some reason has to be changed at intervals, then eventually reach a government hospital like the Doon Medical College. It is a brief halt as the doctors throw up their hands and, for the poor, the next destination is AIIMS Rishikesh in the hope that a bed would be available there.
There is also the serious shortage of doctors and technical staff in government medical facilities, desperately so in the hills. Even those who study in government medical colleges and sign bonds to serve for a couple of years after graduating, disappear, uncaring of the cost. Salaries have been raised but to no avail. A recent news report stated that, even after being provided the convenience of ‘walk-in interviews’ only six doctors showed up at Doon Medical College with over a hundred vacancies existing. Doctors are unwilling to accept postings in the hills, no matter what the incentives as it is not just a difficult job, but also adversely impacts family life. This is despite the fact that medical colleges have also been opened in the higher regions.
How then is the problem to be tackled? A cue can be taken from the famous Australian Flying Doctors service. Government should establish facilities with all the necessary equipment in as many places as possible in the hills. Only the basic caretaker staff, locally recruited, should be posted there. Once a week, doctors and technicians from the plains should be flown in by helicopter to see patients at each of these bases. Patients needing more advanced care can also be flown out. For the doctors, it can be a rotational fifteen-day stint, as is the case with those working on oil-rigs. Initially, a couple of helicopters for each division can be purchased to provide this service. Most definitely, it would relieve much of the suffering of the people. There is no harm in trying this model on a trial basis as soon as possible.
