Srinagar: The Central government has granted 265 Diplomate of National Board (DNB) postgraduate medical seats to several government hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir which includes 20 districts, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a press release on Tuesday.
The move will benefit the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the doctors there who will get an opportunity to be trained in their own region. Tapping into this homegrown medical workforce will lead to an effective healthcare in the Union Territory, the health ministry added.
“With the vision of providing trained specialists in almost every district of Jammu and Kashmir, the government of India took this as a challenge in a mission mode,” the ministry said.
The Ministry of Health along with National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) took a lead role and ensured that several postgraduate seats of NBEMS are granted to various government hospitals of Jammu and Kashmir.
As a consequence, at present there exist more than 250 PG seats across 20 districts in phase 1 of the expansion plan. Two more PG seats will be granted in the second phase.
About half of the PG seats are reserved for local in-service doctors to provide them with opportunity for postgraduate training.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir will be benefited as modern quality healthcare will become more affordable and accessible in almost all the districts. This in turn, would further enhance the quality of primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare,” the health ministry said.
The government has also increased the number of examination centers in the UT to ensure that the candidates do not have to travel to other states to appear in the entrance examinations.