BMJ  2007;334:12 (6 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39079.507639.DB

News

Doctors criticise proposal for community practitioners in rural India

¹ New Delhi

The proposal of an Indian health ministry panel to create a parallel stream of medical practitioners to improve the delivery of health care in rural areas has triggered a debate across the nation's medical community.

The panel, which includes senior doctors and health administrators, has proposed a three year training course to produce community health practitioners who would be deployed in rural areas that have an acute shortage of graduate doctors.

However, officials of the Indian Medical Association said that any such move would be "dangerous" and urged the government to develop alternative solutions to address the shortage of rural doctors.

The ministry's panel has described the shortage of doctors in rural India as alarming. Several thousands of posts for doctors and surgeons remain unfilled. About 13% of all medical posts and 38% of the posts of specialists lie vacant in primary health centres in rural areas.

"We have to . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Doctors and Rural India..do we understand this ?

Dinesh Bagmane
bmj.com, 5 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Rural Practitioners India.

Jacob John
bmj.com, 8 Jan 2007 [Full text]

India may benefit from barefoot doctors

Richard Fielding
bmj.com, 10 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Second-class care for 'second-class' citizens

M J S Zaman
bmj.com, 10 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Incentives & Infrastructure & Implementation.

Shachi Pradhan
bmj.com, 10 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Government versus Doctors

Farhat Mirza
bmj.com, 11 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Dangerous decision

Muralidharan Parthasarathy
bmj.com, 11 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Let's change the bathwater.

Arvind Dayal
bmj.com, 19 Jan 2007 [Full text]

Circumventing responsibility: Licencing Quacks

Dr. Ajoy Kumar Sodani
bmj.com, 12 Feb 2007 [Full text]

community practioners in rural India

sriramashetty vengopal O.B.E, et al.
bmj.com, 13 Feb 2007 [Full text]

India has no proper GP training system!!

Dr Sumithra Joseph
bmj.com, 2 Oct 2009 [Full text]