Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) has expressed concern over the fact that lack of healthcare regulations and massive shortage of doctors, nurses and paramedics is expected to stall access to advanced patient care.

There is a requirement of around 1.5 lakh specialists annually to serve the healthcare requirement of 1.2 billion populations in the country. There is an acute shortage of medical specialists across the country with 40,000 gynaecologists, 40,000 anaesthetists, 10,000 radiologists and 23,000 paediatricians. Further, India has a shortfall of two million nurses. Unless the scarcity is addressed, healthcare is not going to be safe for the patients, stated AHPI.

Only a set of robust reforms in the healthcare space along with the efforts of the Medical Council of India (MCI) to increase number of post graduate admission is seen to be way forward to offset the current crisis, said Dr Girdhar Gyani, director-general, APHI.

Over three lakh doctors after internship waste two to five years in coaching classes to secure a post graduate admission. The Health Ministry should work with the MCI to increase the number of PG seats from the current 14,000 to 48,000 by implementing existing MCI norms. This step will bring over two lakh doctors into the healthcare sector. In fact India is the only country where its two lakh MBBS graduates are seen to keep away from patient care for two to five years only to prepare for a PG exam. This is the root cause of inefficiency of healthcare delivery in rural and urban India. Once these doctors enter the mainstream of healthcare delivery, automatically quality of healthcare will improve significantly, he added.

Highlighting the current reality in the healthcare sector, Dr Gyani said that a  nurse with 20 years of experience in critical care is legally not permitted to give an injection. The Union health ministry should bring about regulations to permit qualified nurses to perform critical care nursing or serve as nurse practitioners, nurse anaesthetists, etc. which are routinely performed by nurses in developed countries. This will improve the image of nursing, quality of services and also remuneration, making the profession attractive.   It would bring in far more accountability and responsibility. Unfortunately, in the current scenario, if a nurse makes a mistake, she is not liable, instead the doctor bears the brunt, he added.