Srinagar, Apr 14: Patients in J&K wait hours for consultation in long queues, for a consultation that doesn’t often last even five minutes. The outpatient services in government hospitals across J&K are under duress, due to long registration queues, extended waiting times, and extremely brief consultations with doctors. No major overhaul is in view to redress these chronic issues.
These lacunae were highlighted in the performance audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India report on the health sector. The report released in March 2026 assessed public health infrastructure and service delivery for the period ending March 2022. The audit analysed responses of 750 outpatients across 41 government health institutions. These institutions included tertiary-level hospitals, district hospitals, sub-district hospitals, and community health centres. Significant gaps in OPD efficiency and patient care came to the fore through the extensive data.
The audit found that only 43% of patients were registered within five minutes across all institutions. Presumably, this percentage is from the lower rung of health institutions that do not witness patient footfall in a significant number. The situation was reported to be most concerning in tertiary hospitals. In these hospitals, just 8% of patients were able to complete registration within five minutes. District hospitals performed slightly better, but delays persisted. Over one-third of patients in these hospitals had to wait more than 15 minutes simply to get registered.
Even after registration, the waiting time was excruciating at higher-level hospitals. Two-thirds of patients in tertiary hospitals waited more than 30 minutes before meeting a doctor, the report revealed. A significant proportion of these patients (20%) had a waiting time of more than an hour after registration.
In district hospitals and sub-district hospitals, a large proportion of patients still waited over 15 minutes for consultation. The waiting tie is an indicator of pressure on limited medical staff and infrastructure.
The audit also underscored the poor evaluation time for the patents. A majority of patients received very limited consultation time. Over half of them said they were examined for five minutes or less. A few years ago, a widely circulated report showed that the average consultation time per patient in the public sector is around two minutes.
Only a handful received consultations longer than 15 minutes, the report revealed. The short interactions raise concerns about the depth of clinical evaluation, in addition to the quality of care in over-stretched government facilities in J&K. In tertiary care hospitals here, the patient load is often in lakhs per department.
The high patient loads, limited staffing, and inadequate number of doctors in OPD and other patient areas is the key reasons behind prolonged waiting times and rushed consultations. The audit gives an insight into the scope of improvement in the multiple levels of the healthcare system in J&K.
