WE THE PEOPLE
J&K Govt., like Westerners must give top place to ‘Dental Health’ in State’s Health-Sector
Experts suggest upgradation of Dental Hospitals as per DCI guidelines, Ban Clinics of Quacks to protect Humans
By: Mirror News Service
Srinagar: In olden days, many causes and factors responsible for spread of epidemics were unknown and hence the toll used to be heavy, but with advancement in medical science gap between the cause and treatment has got narrowed down. This has led to improvement in the standard of health in a big way. Many advanced countries of the world have been spending huge sums of money in research sector to tread into the dormant areas of Nature to find out the cause, especially of dreadful diseases. Once the cause is known, the problem is bound to be over.
As far as India is concerned, it may be said a vast infrastructure for health-oriented schemes stand created, but it needs to be functionally optimized by harnessing all community resources for health to meet the demand of growing population. But in the scheme of Health Sector, Dental Health occupies an important place. Dental Health has direct bearing on overall human health and if one’s teeth are good and oral hygiene perfect, one is bound to have good digestive system. In order words, if gate of human body is good, the internal digestive system is bound to remain toned-up. This is the reason that most of the Western countries have been pumping a sizeable portion of annual budget into Dental Sector and the Dentists are the highest paid class of their society.
Here in Jammu and Kashmir State, the Dental Sector has remained in the backyard and not received the attention that it deserves. Although the government has decided to develop Dental infrastructure in all districts, yet it is to be seen whether such commitment takes practical shape or continues to remain a distant dream. However, it is encouraging that Indian Dental Association (IDA) is wedded to the welfare of dental profession and higher education to its members. It is due to the efforts of J&K Association that State Dental Council (SDC) was formed to look after dental profession and keep it under strict ambit of law so that a common man is benefited and no mal-practices adopted by any member or any institution. But it seems that SDC has failed to enforce its guidelines.
“It was with great difficulty that a Government Medical College (GMC) was set-up in late fifties and it took decades together to bring it at par with other Medical Colleges of the country. This is the College that turned out to be the source of manpower for Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura (SKIMS) and Government Medical College Jammu. With syphoning of manpower, the mother Institute has turned bankrupt. There are some Departments which face de-recognition by Medical Council of India (MCI). Similarly, a Dental College was also set-up at Srinagar at a latter stage, but no efforts were made to strengthen it and expand its branches to other districts of the Valley. It is after so many decades that the State Government has decided to post Dentists to District Hospitals, but development of dental infrastructure is yet to begin in the State. The Government seems to be oblivious of the fact that dental health is more important than anything else. It is the mouth that has to be good as it helps the digestive system to function effectively. It is also unfortunate that many quacks have surfaced in the Valley and set-up their clinics in different districts to fleece innocent people. There are reports that such quacks extract healthy teeth instead of the diseased ones. This has also happened in case of inefficient and incompetent ophthalmologists who have reportedly carved out real eyes instead of the defective ones”, said a group of experienced persons of Kashmir Valley.
It is, therefore, imperative for the State Government to discourage fake Dental Institutions and ban practice by quacks to ensure safety and security to common masses. No Institution should be permitted to operate if Dental Council of India does not approve it. The Dental Clinics in State Hospitals need to be strengthened to meet the demand of growing population. The Dental Colleges in the State need to be equipped with all requisite infrastructures to come up to the level of Dental Council of India, which has evolved guidelines for maintenance of high standard.
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