NITI Aayog member, Dr Vinod Paul, said that by 2030, India would meet the WHO criteria of one doctor to 800 patients, i.e.1:800 as MBBS and postgraduate seats has been increased.

Dr Paul was addressing an assembly on Wednesday at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh to celebrate the silver jubilee of the Oral Health Sciences Centre (OHSC). He stated that by 2024, they will have one doctor per 1,000 patients. They had 1,0.22 lakh doctors in 2017 and now can have 14 lakh plus by 2024.

Approximately 20,000 MBBS seats were added in one year and there had already been a rise of 32% in 2019. Currently, there are 80,257 MBBS seats whereas last year there were only 60,680 seats. Dr Paul insisted the PGI doctors to make additional postgraduate seats. He also said that Prof Jagat Ram, director of PGI, has said PGI might have MBBS teaching programme in the satellite centres as required.

However, the PGI doctors, feel that it is not practical as the quality of education will suffer. They feel thatin spite of an increase in the MBBS seats, the main challenge is in super specialization. They answered that super specialists are focused in the cities, as proper infrastructure is unavailable in the rural areas. Moreover, the teaching standard will also be diluted if student’s intake is increased in the medical colleges. The district hospitals, which are going to be upgraded as medical colleges, do not have experienced medical teachers. Doctors would be then teaching without any teaching experience. Dr Paul agreed that they need 10 lakh more specialists. With the speed of 50,000 seats per annum, it would take more than 20 years to reach the target.

Source: ET Healthworld