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Health Ministry proposes to convert 75 district

hospitals into medical colleges

File/ | Photo Credit: M Periasamy

PTI 15

NEW DELHI 09 JUNE 2019 13:14 IST

UPDATED: 09 JUNE 2019 13:35 IST

If the proposal is realised, it would fulfil one of the promises made by the BJP in its
manifesto for the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections and will serve to create an
additional 10,000 MBBS seats in the country

The Health Ministry has proposed to convert 75 district hospitals into medical
colleges in the third phase of a scheme which aims at boosting availability of
human resource for the health sector.

The proposal is a part of the Centre-sponsored program Human Resources for

Health and Medical Education, which was launched for the establishment of new
medical colleges by upgrading district or referral hospitals preferably in
underserved districts of the country.

In the first phase, the Centre had approved converting 58 district hospitals into
medical colleges while in the second phase, 24 hospitals were selected. Out of
these 39 hospitals have become functional while the remaining are still under
construction.

“The proposal to convert 75 district hospitals into medical colleges in the third
phase of the scheme has been sent for approval to the Expenditure Finance
Committee (EFC), after which it will be sent to the Cabinet,” a source said.

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The upgradation of each of the 75 district hospitals into medical colleges would
cost around ₹325 crore, according to a draft proposal for the plan. If the proposal
is realised, it would fulfil one of the promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party
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in its manifesto for the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Under the scheme, the State Governments put in a proposal earmarking hospitals
in underserved districts to be converted into medical colleges, in line with the
criteria that the district should have no other private or government medical
college.

“The scheme aims at meeting the shortfall of human resource in the health
sector. Medical colleges are unevenly spread across urban and rural areas of the
country presenting wide disparities in the quality of education. The shortfall of
human resource in health has resulted in skewing the distribution of health
workers such that vulnerable populations in rural, tribal and hilly areas continue
to be extremely underserved,” a senior Health Ministry official said.

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The scheme will serve to create an additional 10,000 MBBS and 8,000 post-
graduate seats in the country, bridge the gap between the number of seats
available in Government and private sector, mitigate the shortage of doctors and
medical faculty in India and achieve the desired doctor- population ratio.

The registration data from professional councils indicates that the availability of
one doctor per population of 1953 (HLEG Report) is far less than that of one
doctor per 1000 population recommended by the World Health Organisation.
Further, to meet the requirements of Universal Health Coverage there is a need
for improvement in the country’s present doctor population ratio from 0.5 per
1000 persons to one doctor per 1000 persons by the end of the year 2027.

The scheme mentions that the country has one of the largest number of medical
colleges in the world, producing over 57, 000 doctors and 25, 000 specialists.
However, India’s average annual output of graduates per medical college is much
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less as compared to 149 in Western Europe, 220 in Eastern Europe and 930 in
China.

Further, the medical colleges in the private sector have increased exponentially
where poor students find it difficult to afford education. This also necessitates
increase in MBBS seats in Government medical colleges.

“Hence, by opening new government medical colleges by attaching existing

district/referral hospitals on one hand and liberalising some Medical Council of
India norms on the other, a substantial number of MBBS seats can be increased,”
the scheme states.

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