Our healthcare system needs to be
The
National Medical Commission Bill has been sent to a standing committee for a
relook. The Bill aims to overhaul the corrupt and inefficient Medical Council
of India, which regulates medical education and practice. One of
its goals is to rein in corruption in the MCI. There might be an independent Medical Advisory Council to
oversee the National Medical Commission, the proposed successor of the MCI.
Many MBBS
doctors seek a post-graduate degree to improve career prospects. MCI
regulations prevent even experienced MBBS doctors from carrying out procedures
like caesarians and ultrasound tests, while nurses are barred from
administering anaesthesia. Empowering
doctors and nurses is the need of
the hour. To have a three-year diploma for rural medical-care providers is a good idea to tackle the paucity of
doctors.
India
has no choice but to innovate with health-care delivery models to tackle the
challenges it faces. MBBS doctors and nurses can do more than they are legally
allowed to do. The government should empower existing doctors.
India
presently has a tremendous age advantage, majority are under 30. To realise the
huge economic potential from age advantage, the remote areas, villages in every
state requires immediate presence of medical professional like the 2001
experiment in Chattisgarh, Karnataka village doctors and other states. The
world statistics puts India at the very bottom in TB, pre and post natal deaths,
general nutrition, etc.
It
would have helped the Indian population if Center had started the exercise of
filling the gaps in phased manner and fixing time frame on every of the matter.
The State government should have been consulted and asked to nominate
responsible experienced health care specialist from the government, not from
the ministry but who has good knowledge of the geography and working system of
health facilities in around the state, district and taluka wise with complete
details of population etc. We did have very good rural health care centers in
Karnataka which was one of the first state in the country to develop state
health care centers and Kerala too developed such models which was successful
but subsequently worked.
Now we
are talking about just doctors and nurses. But the Governments have ignored the
competence of pharmacists in their ability to provide basic healthcare and
prescribing medicines (as they have better knowledge about drugs). The
government has also overlooked the services that pharmacists can provide given
the shortage of doctors in rural areas and hinterland.
Doctors’
strike has brought to the fore, the lacunae in the proposed bill and forced the
government to review the provisions. The committee must hold
extensive consultations with doctors fraternity and revise the bill to suit the
present conditions.
Lastly,
people should react with rational minds and be pragmatic rather than seeing
things in an emotional way. Well long sightedness is a virtue seldom seen in
the planning and implementation of anything in India, most decisions are sadly
done for personal or temporary gains without much thought on consequences
No comments:
Post a Comment