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Latest News |
| 11th
February 2010 / Times of India / Pune Edition |
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IMA team to dissuade CM from starting new course
Pune: Representatives from the state chapter of the Indian
Medical Association (IMA) will meet chief minister Ashok
Chavan and state health minister Suresh Shetty next week
to dissuade them from implementing the newly designed
three-and-halfyear undergraduate medical degree course
meant for exclusively serving the rural populace . Since
health is a state subject , the Union government has left
it to the states to introduce the course in their region.
It may be noted that after incentives failed to lure MBBS
doctors to practise in remote areas, the Union health
ministry and the Medical Council of India (MCI) decided
to start a threeand-half-year degree course in medicine
and surgery. Experts from the IMA feel that this course
will produce half-baked inferior quality doctors, who
will lack confidence and credibility to lead a team of
other health workers like nurses with diploma (three-and-half-year
course)/ BSc nursing (four+one year course) or pharmacists
(four years course).
Speaking to TOI on Tuesday, Bakulesh Mehta, state president
of the IMA, said, A delegation of IMA representatives
will meet Chavan and Shetty next week to stress the point
that this course should not be implemented. The IMA has
been opposing the course right from the beginning.
He said After the MCIs meeting with all stakeholders on
February 4, the newly designed medical degree Bachelor
of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS) has been rechristened
Bachelor of Rural Health Care (BRHC).
On one hand the health care in metros and big cities is
quite advanced. On the other, rural areas where 60 per
cent of the Indian population resides does not even have
basic health care (primary care). This gap, however ,
cannot be filled by compromised health workers in the
name of BRHC, said Mehta. How can there be two different
standards for health care, one state of the art (comparable
to the best in western countries) for the urban population
and second, a sub-standard care for rural masses, jeopardising
the latters health and life.
The spirit of the course is against the fundamental right
of a citizen of India where every one should be provided
quality health care of similar standards at an affordable
cost, said Dilip Sarda, president of the city chapter
of the IMA. Early detection of complicated disease conditions
and appropriate treatment will suffer if the service of
a qualified doctor is denied to the rural population.
The BRHC degree would be offered by institutes in rural
areas with an annual sanctioned strength of 50 students.
Selection of students would be based on merit in the 10+2
examination with physics, chemistry and biology as subjects.
A student who has had his entire schooling in a rural
area with a population not more than 10,000 would be eligible
for selection.
Devendra Shirole, former state president of the IMA, said,
Factors like paucity of doctors, low doctor-population
ratio (1.62 per 10,000 only), absence of doctors , lack
of infrastructure facilities contribute to the absence
of proper health care in rural areas . But this situation
cannot be corrected by compromised health workers in the
name of BRHC. The IMA strongly opposes this proposal.
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