hief Secretary, Atal Dulloo today chaired a meeting of Health & Medical Education (H&ME) Department to review the functioning of Medical Colleges of the UT here.

Besides Secretary H&ME, the meeting was attended by Director, SKIMS; Principal GMC Srinagar/Jammu; Director Health Jammu/Kashmir and Principals of New Medical Colleges.

During meeting, the Chief Secretary observed that the aim of establishing new medical colleges is to bring tertiary healthcare nearer to people in peripheral areas. He made out that the introduction of DM/MCH/DNB in Medical Colleges is the benchmark of ascertaining their super speciality healthcare.

Dulloo also urged upon the Principals of these colleges to make efforts for introduction of these courses in all kinds of specialities where it has not been introduced yet. He advised them to proportionately enhance the seats in already available courses.

The Chief Secretary enjoined upon the New Medical Colleges to strive for introduction of MD/MS courses. He enjoined upon them to make best use of the available infrastructure and human resources to make these colleges the hub of medical education in their respective districts.

Dulloo also took this occasion to imply upon the Department to constitute a team of experts to assess the tertiary care services in all the newly established Medical Colleges here.

He made out that a roadmap should be framed for all of these colleges to upgrade services there with specific timelines for each of the suggested upgradation.

He remarked that such recommendations should be made in consultation with the respective college administrations who would be solely responsible to take the necessary steps in a time-bound manner.

The Secretary, H&ME, Dr Syed Abid Rashid Shah gave a detailed outline of the courses and tertiary care services, diagnostic facilities available in the Associated Hospitals of new Medical Colleges.

He also apprised the meeting about the proportion of high-end procedures/cases dealt by each Department in these colleges. He also laid out the future programs of these colleges to upgrade or introduce the new services there.

The Principals of these colleges also highlighted the work performed during the past months. They gave insights about the position of faculty, infrastructure, machinery and equipments available with them and that in pipeline to be secured through JKMSCL.

The meeting also had elaborate discussions about bringing improvement in quality of services in these medical colleges along with that the Dental Colleges and of Unani/Ayurvedic Medical colleges found in various districts of J&K.