Shorter MBBS courses in order to give medical professionals for villages
Shorter MBBS courses in order to give medical professionals for villages
To help combat acute shortage of doctors in rural areas, the government has come up with a one of a kind three-and-a-half-year bachelor study course in medicine and surgery (MBBS) for young people from villages.
The catch is these medical professionals can’t be allowed practice in urban and also semi-urban places.
Once the rural medical professionals get their degrees, they will be allowed to practise only in notified rural locations. To make certain this, the MCI will renew their practicing license on an annual schedule that too on submission of a certificate from the area health officer.
At present, the sub-centers are dealt with by the auxiliary nurse and midwives (ANMs) and there are no medical professionals to man them since they prefer to work in urban areas.
“These docs will work in rural areas. District hospitals with specified bed capacities can be utilised as medical schools for these courses,” said health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
According to Dr Ketan Desai, president of Medical Council of India (MCI), this will give a chance to kids of villagers to get into the medical stream.
“Only Three hundred out of India’s 604 districts have health colleges. There are 34,000 healthcare seats available at the MBBS level out of which only 10,000 are left for general students after quotas. Some very good students are left out due to stiff levels of competition where largely the metropolitan students score better on account of greater coaching facility,” Desai said.
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The rural health study course has already been virtually finalised by the MCI and even is likely to be spoken of in a conference with vice-chancellors of universities, and health secretaries on February 4.
“The syllabus shall be the identical. We have only condensed the new course by removing specific things like kidney transplant, angiography, MRI, as well as radiology from it. All we need at the village level is really a doctor who can instantly attend to a patient. Such doctor can refer severe patients to district or larger hospitals,” Desai said.
In rural areas, doctors can handle normal health conditions like asthma or stomach health conditions. They can in addition attend to regular child delivery, but they will definitely not perform operation or look into difficult conditions, Dr Desai said.
The government will begin by selecting up 25 students from each of India’s 300 districts which do not have medical schools. The new MBBS program has already been tailor-made geared to the rural conditions.
Source DNA India
Do you think the Decision of MCI is correct. Use the comments Section below to post your views. Remember YOUR VIEWS COUNT !
Murali Says
” The course should named as MBS only otherwise
thos will insult to medicos who completed 5 and half years
to take MBBS”
MURALI
It should be named DMHM (Diploma in Modern & Holistic Medicine)as proposed by Bhore committee OR DRMS (Diploma in Rural Medicine & Surgery). As it is only 3 & 1/2 years course like Diploma Engineering courses which is of 3 years duration.
Indian government (which is indirectly run by the Secretaries/IAS Officers) and executive committee members of Medical Council of India who approved this proposal think that rural population don’t need qualified MBBS doctors as cities do?
MAY BE THE IAS OFFICERS ARE RIGHT, THE RURAL POPULATIONS DO NOT NEED QUALIFIED DOCTORS.
Last 63years since independence the rural people survived with limited available MBBS doctors. What if we provide them few more nurses & pharmacists armed with DRMS diploma – oops sorry degree.
Atlest people will think that govt has given them adequate number of doctors. Why should govt (ministers & IAS officers) unnecessarily share their profit to lure the qualified MBBS doctors to practise in remote areas, Why should govt spend unnecessary money by opening more medical colleges to create more qualified MBBS Doctors, why should govt pay higher renumeration (as given by USA/UK/AUSTRALIA and other developed countries) to the doctors so as to retain them in this country.
AREN’T THE IAS OFFICERS THINKING TO ABOLISH THE 5 & 1/2 YEAR MBBS DEGREE AND REPLACE IT BY DRMS COURCES? Surely may be. This will double the out put of DRMS doctors in same period of time. The DRMS doctors – opps sorry as per MCI BRMS doctors with their knowledge just equivalent to nurses & pharmacists will solve the problem of India’s chronic shortage of doctors.
The West Bengal government’s move to table a Bill to allow for a three-year medical diploma course in Bengal in the winter session of the state Assembly has failed to find favour with doctors who say it must not be an alternative to a four-year-MBBS degree.
State Health Minister Surya Kanta Misra, while refusing to discuss the details of the Bill, said it will be a three-year diploma course.
Satyajit Chakrabarty, secretary, Association of Health Service Doctors, said, “We want it to be made clear this is not a short-term medical course. Since this diploma will not be recognised by the Medical Council of India, they cannot write ‘doctors’ before their names and will not be allowed to hand out death certificates. There is a lot of confusion about it. We want clarity.”
He, however, said they were not entirely against the course since it could aid health care at the gram panchayat level.
“Those applying for the course should at least have a high school degree, much like the nurses’ training course,” said Chakrabarty.
Md Masiha, the chief government whip, said the state government had already drafted the entire Bill, which the subject committee has examined and submitted a report to the Assembly.
The state health department is likely to place the Bill in the Assembly on December 14 or 15,” said Masiha.
Meanwhile, Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Manas Bhuniya said the proposed diploma course was “unscientific and detrimental”.
“They did something similar around 10 to 15 years ago but the course had to be discontinued. How can the state government send people without MBBS degrees to villages to treat locals? This course will be illegal as it will not even have the recognition by the Medical Council of India (MCI). How can a person treat a patient without even the recognition from the MCI. There are enough village quacks…why does the state government want to increase their ranks,” said Bhuniya.
He said the Central government is already planning to address the issue of inadequate doctors in the rural sector.
“The central government is planning to introduce a Bill in the coming session of Parliament which will make it mandatory for all the MBBS pass-outs to serve in villages before they take up post-graduation,” he said.