Medical agitated students across the nation said that they will launch a complaint against the government’s decision to make one year rural posting for doctors compulsory. The Indian Medical Association (IMA), Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) along with representatives of medical students across the country, demanded that rural posting be made part of the internship and post graduate training. ‘Indian Medical Association supports rural posting. But, in the present scenario making it compulsory is not a good thing because there is no systematic posting in rural areas. IMA secretary-general, Narendra Saini said every PG student must do six months of rural posting as part of their course/ internship.
The IMA along with AHPI also announced a nationwide movement ‘Save the Doctor’ to equalize under graduate (UG) and post graduate (PG) medical seats.
APHI treasurer Devi Shetty said, “It is a sad plight that nearly two lakh young doctors in our country at the peak of their youth spend few years in coaching classes mugging multiple choice questions rather than treating patients and learning the art of healing. These young doctors under the right circumstances can significantly improve the quality of health care offered to our citizens”.
Dr Madhav Deo (Padmashree Awardee and member of Academic Council of the Medical Council of India), whose piece entitled ‘Doctor population ratio for India – The reality’ in the April issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Research argued that the problems faced by rural India in accessing healthcare services couldn’t simply be solved by making scapegoats of young medical students but this can be achieved confronting the real issues like lack of facilities and corruption.
Dr Deo added that the real problem facing rural India is the lack of specialists. The government’s decision to send inexperienced junior doctors to rural India is flawed to the core.
