The number of diseases and patients is increasing rapidly around the world. Recently there has been a report that antibiotics, which used to work easily, have now lost their effectiveness. Therefore, there is a need for more doctors to manage the increasing number of patients. But, new data released by the government has once again exposed the acute shortage of doctors in the country. According to the information presented in Parliament on Tuesday, there is only one doctor for every 811 people in India. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda said that there are 1,388,185 allopathic doctors registered in the country, while there are 751,768 doctors registered in the AYUSH system.
What did the Union Health Minister say?
He said that if only 80 percent allopathic and AYUSH doctors are actively available, then the doctor-to-population ratio in the country is 1:811. Nadda said that there has been a lot of progress in medical education in the last few years. As compared to 2014, the number of medical colleges has increased from 387 to 818. MBBS seats have increased from 51,348 to 128,875, and PG seats have increased from 31,185 to 82,059.
Necessary steps to ensure availability of doctors
The Health Minister said that the government has taken several steps to increase the availability of doctors in rural, backward and tribal areas. Of the 157 new medical colleges attached to district hospitals under a central scheme, 137 have already become operational. Furthermore, Family Adoption Program has been included in the MBBS curriculum. Under this programme, medical colleges adopt villages, and MBBS students regularly monitor the families living in these villages. This ensures continuous follow-up on matters such as vaccination, nutrition, period health care, iron-folic acid supplementation, healthy lifestyle, malaria and dengue control, and adherence to medication regimens. Nadda said that through this, information about government health schemes is easily available.
Postgraduate students deployment
Under the District Residency Program of NMC, second and third year PG students from medical colleges are being posted in the district hospitals. Benefits like hard-area allowance and government accommodation have also been provided for expert doctors working in rural and remote areas. The minister also said that the new NMC rules allow foreign doctors to seek temporary registration in India and work under certain circumstances such as training, research, fellowship, voluntary service or super-specialty programmes.