Last year in May-June, 2021 Jammu and Kashmir Government hired near around 1300 staff for the 2 Covid19 Hospitals, each one in Jammu and another in Srinagar on contractual basis.
The notification-cum-advertisement read “Hiring Contractual Staff for a period of one year, extendable up to 3 years“, in Which Doctors, Staff Nurses, Anesthesia Technicians, X-Ray Techs, & Pharmacists were hired directly by GMC Srinagar and GMC Jammu after conducting written examinations for the said posts.
And other posts like Nursing Orderlies, Sanitary Workers were outsourced, in addition a large number of Doctors were deputed from different district hospitals of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the due course of time DRDO Hospital Srinagar treated over 1100 COVID-19 patients, the Hospitals are equipped with 125 ICU beds each, and The remaining 375 beds have high-flow oxygen connectivity in both the hospitals.
Both the Hospitals have two oxygen generation plants, With the capacity of 56000 liter capacity of Liquid Medical Oxygen, 4 crore 39 lakh liters of gaseous oxygen, and are the largest in J&K.
The Associated hospitals with GMC Jammu and GMC Srinagar have a huge shortage of Staff, then it be Staff Nurses, Pharmacists or the other professionals, at the same time Recruitment carried out for both DRDO hospitals in J&K was the only major recruitment post the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
The 1 year contracts comes to end by the month of June 2022, and the manpower hired by both the GMC’s await extension order by UT Administration, the staff is well trained to tackle any infectious outbreak.
When asked Additional Chief Secretary to J&K Government, Health and Medical Education, Vivek Bhardwaj said the J&K Government has taken the issue with GoI seeking clarity on the future of DRDO Hospitals in Jammu and Kashmir, and are now awaiting response from the Center Government, he said.
Furthermore, Health and Medical Education department J&K has asked both the Principles of GMC Srinagar and Jammu to review the requirement for continuance of the services of all staff hired under contractual basis.
Meanwhile, Amid rising COVID cases in South East Asia and European countries, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya chaired a high-level meeting on Wednesday and directed officials to maintain a high level of alertness and surveillance, and carry out genomic sequencing aggressively.
China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea are among the South East Asian countries witnessing a rise in COVID cases.
The two-hour-long meeting was attended by the head of India`s COVID-19 task force Dr VK Paul, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria, ICMR Chief Dr Balram Bhargava, Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan and Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan.
Mandaviya directed officials to maintain alertness, aggressive genome sequencing and intensified surveillance, sources informed.