SRINAGAR: As a significant step towards strengthening public healthcare scenario in J&K, 12 more seats have been sanctioned by National Board of Examinations in Medical Science (NBEMS) under DNB for the public institutions of J&K. These seats shall be in addition to the earlier granted 270 DNB seats.
As per detailed breakup, Srinagar Hospital received approval for 2 seats in Orthopedics; GMC Rajouri for 2 seats in Paediatrics; DH Poonch for 2 seats in Surgery, DH Reasi 2 seats in General Medicine and Department of Anesthesiology GMC Baramulla given accreditation for starting DNB courses with intake of 4 PGs, 2 primary DNB and 2 Secondary DNB seats per year.
Secretary Health & Medical Education Department, Bhupinder Kumar, congratulated the entire health and medical education department for this achievement. He expressed happiness over the fact that even far-flung facilities like DH Poonch and DH Reasi have been able to start Post Graduate Courses in these hospitals.
Ayushi Sudan, Mission Director, NHM J&K, while giving details about the development, said that implementation of DNB courses at the district level in J&K has been termed as a best practice in the Country. Under DNB programme in the UT, a total of 270 seats were granted to the accredited departments during session 2022 and start of 2023 consequent to the concerted efforts and hard work of the administrative department H&ME J&K, NHM J&K and the team of health institutions being monitored by Bhupinder Kumar, Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department.
All the efforts are being made to scale up the DNB courses in all the District Hospitals and potential CHCs of J&K. During upcoming session, J&K is planning to submit more than 30 application in all District Hospitals”, she added.
Earlier in the month of March, 20 seats were approved in the UT of J&K in which Government Medical College Srinagar received approval for 2 seats in FNB Paediatric Anesthesia. JLNM Hospital, Srinagar received 3 Post MBBS DNB seats in General Surgery, DH Udhampur received a sanction of 5 seats under Pediatrics, General Medicine and Orthopedics. DH Poonch received 2 seats in General Medicine. DH Ganderbal got a sanction of 2 seats each in DNB General Medicine & Diploma Pediatrics. DH Kulgam received 2 seats in Family Medicine and CHC Kupwara got 2 seats in Diploma Pediatrics.
Pertinent to mention that the DNB (Diplomate of National Board) courses have been introduced in the District Hospitals and new Government Medical Colleges besides old GMCs and SKIMS in order to strengthen the institutions, decongest the Govt. Medical Colleges and to address the shortage of specialists in the UT of J&K.
Implementation of DNB courses has led to an equitable distribution of health care services and manpower especially in far flung and hard to reach areas and beneficial to the population which have very meagre access to health care services in their areas, leading to low referrals from DNB institutions to Tertiary care institutions thereby further decreasing the Out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) of the patients.