Govt plans to introduce compulsory rural posting for doctors

New Delhi, July 13 (UNI) The health ministry is planning to change medical curriculam by introducing one year compulsory rural posting for all doctors to practice in the country.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said a national policy would be brought in soon under which each doctor would have undergo an year's mandatory rural posting after internship before registering himself for practice.

At present only the government doctors in some states have to do compulsory rural posting while it was not mandatory for private practitioners, he pointed out.

The government is also planning to bring the Medical Council of India Amendment Bill to curb the corruption and mis-administration in the present body. MCI is a crucial institution responsible for quality of medical education in the country but its functioning has been affected due to rampant corruption, he said and added that the bill would be brought in soon.

Meanwhile, most of the recommendations of the Javed Chowdhary Committee set up to inquire into the working conditions of government sector doctors would be accepted by the government, he said.

The Committee, which has already submitted its report, has suggested ways of improving the working conditions to present brain drain of doctors both within the country and abroad, he informed.

''About 90 per cent recommendations would be accepted except those which have financial implications like hike in salary and other such matters on which finance ministry's approval is required,'' he clarified and said that a decision would be taken within a couple of months.

Regarding the progress of the plan to set up six AIIMS like Institutions in the country, Dr Ramadoss said that the programme was progressing well with Rs 4200 crore been sanctioned for setting up these institutions and upgradation of some existing ones. Money and logistics have been provided and soon the cabinet committee and CCEA would clear it for spending about one billion dollar on this project during the tenth and eleventh plan period.

Asserting that the National Rural Health Mission, the flagship programme of the ministry, was doing quite well, the health minister said that till now 140,000 ASHAs have been appointed in 18 states.

Under NRHM, the government has a target of appointing 250,000 ASHAs to provide health services at village level. He said that district Health Societies have also been formed in many states to implement the programmes effectively.

The Rural Emergency Maternity Training programme has also been launched to provide training to contain maternal and child mortality in the country. The programme would help to promote the concept of maternal health in remote areas of the country.

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