The consultative committee attached to the Union health and family welfare ministry, consisting of a group of MPs representing different political parties, has unanimously supported the union health minstry's proposal for mandatory rural service by medical graduates. The committee also said that the Bachelor in Rural Health Care course should be introduced to overcome the shortfall of doctors in rural areas.
Faced with the grave issue of shortage of doctors in the rural areas of the country, former health minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss had planned to reintroduce the licentiate course for medical practitioners, making it compulsory for them to work in rural areas. It was to be made compulsory for medical graduates to take up posting in rural areas before getting registration for practice for a fixed term as existed earlier. The Planning Commission had in fact suggested reintroduction of the two-year licentiate programme while a section in the government was for one year practice mandatory for the doctors.
But the incumbent union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad initially did not favour that policy and announced some financial and other incentives attached to the rural posting to attract the doctors for serving the rural populace. But, that did not seem to have worked, because in spite of financial and human resource incentives, the availability of doctors and medical persons is still a major constraint in providing adequate health care to the remote and inaccessible areas.
The shortage doctors in the rural areas of the country has been a major issue that the government has been facing for a long time as the doctors generally prefer cities for working. Though the government had taken several measures to arrest the trend during the last several years, the situation did not improve as the doctors continued to prefer working in the cities and towns only. Deepa Dashmunshi (INC), Davidson J Helen (DMK), Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar (TMC), Datta R Meghe (INC), Dr P Venugopal (AIADMK), Bishnu Pada Ray (BJP), Dr M Jagannath (INC), Moti Lal Vora (INC), Prof. P J Kurien (INC), K V P Ramachandra Rao (INC), Oscar Fernandes (INC), Abani Roy (RSP), Baishnab Parida (BJD), Dr V Maitreyan (AIADMK) and Inder Singh Namdhari (Independent) are some of the members who took part in the committee meeting. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of state for health and family welfare Dinesh Trivedi and senior officials of the health ministry also participated in the consultative committee meeting.