Hundreds of students in the country who wish to pursue a career in medicine have something to cheer about as the Medical Council of India (MCI) has given the go ahead to set up17 new medical colleges in the government and private sector. The statutory body for medical education has also cleared the decks for increasing the seats available at seven existing colleges.

The new government colleges will come up in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana. The new private institutions are in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana and West Bengal. The decision will help as many as 3,350 more students join medical education in the 2018-19 academic session as 1,400 more seats are also approved at existing colleges in various states.

The MCI has already recommended to the Central government to issue the Letter of Permission. The government is expected to accord permission by May end following the Council’s recommendation under Section 10A of the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956.

The decision is good news for the country’s healthcare sector that is grappling with a severe dearth of doctors. India’s doctor-patient ratio in modern medicine remains a dismal 1:1600 as against the WHO mandated 1:1000. Though the country has the highest number of medical colleges as a nation, the present count of about 400 fails to provide the much needed basic healthcare for its 1.2 billion strong population.

The health ministry is getting ready to issue letters calling for documents and the colleges which have received approvals should furnish details of all infrastructural requirements in terms of teaching and non-teaching staff, buildings, equipment and hospital facilities as per MCI guidelines. No student should be admitted to the medical courses till the formal permission of the Central government is granted.

According to data provided by All India Council for Technical Education, the country has a total of 1.57 million undergraduate engineering seats, but only around 70,000 seats for medical education. The current doctor-patient ratio in northeast and central India is 9.4 to 100,000. In other areas, it is better at 159 to 100,000 which is about 15.9 doctors for 10,000 people. It may be noted that in the US, the current doctor-patient ratio is 39.8 doctors for 10,000 people.

In the medical higher education landscape, the picture is murkier. While the country produces around 67,000 medical graduates every year, there are only 25,000 post-graduation seats. And more than 80 per cent of specialists’ positions are reported to be lying vacant in community health centres.

To address the acute shortage of specialists, especially in rural areas, the government recently eased regulations to allow postgraduate diploma holders to practice as specialists and carry out procedures that only postgraduate degree holders were permitted to do earlier. It is also mandatory for all medical colleges to offer post-graduate courses within three years of starting under-graduate courses. The amendments also state that the institutions failing to comply with regulations will lose their recognition.