Rural postings to be made mandatory for new doctors: Ramadoss

New Delhi, May 9 (UNI) Rural postings for medical graduates would be made mandatory from next year while a comprehensive bill to regulate the functioning of all government and private hospitals was on the anvil, Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss said today.

He also categorically ruled out privatisation of the Central Government Health Services (CGHS) scheme, saying its 50 lakh beneficiaries could not left to the mercy of the market forces.

''The Health Ministry has firmed up its decision that all MBBS graduates will be posted in rural areas for a year,'' Dr Ramadoss said, during his one-and-a-half-hour-long reply to a nearly five-hour-long debate in the Rajya Sabha on the functioning of the Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

Elaborating, the Minister said all the MBBS graduates would have to be registered with the District Medical Officers (DMOs), who would assign them postings in Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and Central Health Centres (CHCs).

''All the fresh MBBS graduates will be given temporary registration for three months and only after completing their rural posting, they would be allowed to pursue their post-graduate courses,'' he said.

Further, all existing doctors will be required to re-register themselves after every five years to maintain the quality of medical care, he said.

The Minister also disclosed that a comprehensive bill to regulate the functioning of all hospitals, public and private, will be introduced in Parliament next year. This will streamline the procedure for setting up of hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres, he said.

Dwelling on the policies and priorities of his Ministry, Dr Ramadoss said that his focus areas were to reduce the infant mortality rate and to strengthen the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), a priority programme of the UPA government.

''India ranks 126th in the world as regards infant mortality as per an UNDP report, and this definitely is a matter of serious concern for my ministry,'' he said.

Expressing concern over the dwindling public spending on health from 1.3 per cent of the GDP in the early 1990s to 0.9 per cent in the latter part of the decade, Dr Ramadoss said that the UPA's Common Minimum Programme had set a target of two to three percent.

''Funds are a not a constraint now but much depends on the absorption capacity of the states,'' he noted, regretting that the attitude of some of the states had been ''far from cooperative.'' About the NRHM, he said it was a seven-year holistic programme encompassing health, drinking water, sanitation and nutrition. ''By 2012, the target year for the completion of the programme, we intend to create a solid infrastructural base of health services in rural areas,'' he said.

The Minister said that as part of the plan, all PHCs, sub-centres and district hospitals would be modernised.

Admitting that the existing health insurance scheme had not taken off in a big way, he said a new programme would be launched by the end of this year or early next year to overhaul it.

Regarding the menace of spurious drugs, Dr Ramadoss came out in strong support of the Mashelkar Committee Report which had recommended a central licensing pattern, and said a bill for the creation of a Central Drug Authority was nearly ready.

He, however, disagreed with BJP member SS Ahluwalia's contention that 35 per cent of Indian drugs were spurious. ''These are merely press reports aimed at sensationalising the issue,'' he said, but admitted that 62 per cent of injections in the country were ''unsafe.'' More UNI