Patil urges doctors to serve rural communities

Mumbai: Indian President Pratibha Patil on Tuesday urged medical institutions, doctors and students to serve rural communities where medical facilities are limited and not easily accessible.

Inaugurating the In-Vitro Fertilisation Centre at the D.Y. Patil Medical College in Navi Mumbai, Patil pointed out that the reason why she strongly emphasised on rural service was because 75 per cent of the country's medical facilities were located in urban areas while 70 per cent of the population living in villages was deprived of the best medical facilities.

"I would encourage medical institutions to look at the possibility of sending medical students to villages for training," she said. "They can also help in the creation of health workers in the villages by giving them training on basic medical skills and first aid treatment."

Unreasonable

A year ago, the union health minister had announced a plan requiring doctors to practice in villages before graduating but his proposal drew angry response from medical students who argued that a year of rural service would be an unreasonable addition to their education.

Perhaps, that is why the President stressed that the Indian education system "needs to be designed in a manner that it not only produces capable doctors but also sensitises them to national efforts to provide healthcare to all".

Federal government has schemes like the National Rural Health Mission, she mentioned, and its success depended on the "willingness of the health professionals to contribute to this endeavour".

India also needed more doctors and many more institutions as the doctor-to-patient ratio was very low, especially in rural India, said Patil. At present, there are 271 medical colleges all over the country out of which about 31,000 medical graduates pass out every year. "We have half a doctor for 1,000 people as compared to 2.3 per 1,000 in the United States. We, therefore, need many more doctors and many more institutions," she said.

With the demand for medical education being so high, Indian students are attending medical schools in Russia and more recently, in China in sizeable numbers. Patil pointed out that increase in medical schools was not enough.