Bangalore: To address shortage of medical
manpower in rural areas, the Centre is planning to start a
Bachelor of Rural Health Course, Union Minister for Health
Gulab Nabi Azad said on Wednesday.
"A group of 25 students from notified rural areas will
undergo training for three and half years in district
hospitals and taught by serving/retired professors. They will
be obligated to serve mostly in sub-centres and if need be in
primary health centres," he said, addressing 14th convocation
at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Science
(NIMHANS) here.
Currently doctors, specialists and super specialists
handled primary health centres, but five to six sub-centres
which came under a primary health centre were facing shortage
of doctors, he said.
"They were often manned by junior nurses who addressed
issues relating to family planning and could not take care
other medical needs. This shortage could be addressed by
training rural youths in this field," he said.
The medical schools at district level would select
students from rural areas and minimum education qualification
needed is 10 plus two with chemistry, zoology, botany as
subjects.
The education programme in no way would lack in quality
in comparison to MBBS. The theory would be same but practical
would be far less as these doctors would not be engaged
largely in performing surgeries, he said.
According to conservative estimates, India was short of
about 8000 psychiatrist, 17,000 clinical psychologists, 23,000
psychiatric social workers and 9,000 psychiatric nurses. Today
less than one psychiatrist is available per lack population,
Azad said.
Similarly, to address shortfall in nursing, the ministry
had approved a scheme to open more than 250 nursing schools in
backward, unserved districts to train 22,000 nurses annually,
Azad said.
Currently, the availability of PG training seats were
approximately 350 for psychiatry, 120 for clinical psychology,
25 for psychiatric social workers and 9000 psychiatric nurses,
he said.
Keeping in view of the huge demand-supply gap, the Health
Ministry had taken up the issue and for the first time more
than Rs 400 crore has been approved for manpower development
schemes under the National Health Programme, he said.
"Under this scheme we propose to establish 11 centres of
excellence in the field of mental health, for producing more
trained manpower in psychiatry, clinical psychology,
psychiatric social work and psychiatric nursing, he said.
An amount of Rs 30 crore will be made available for each
centre of excellence.
The ministry was also supporting medical colleges and
mental hospitals to start and augment PG courses in mental
health specialities. A total of 120 departments would be
supported. This scheme would generate 1140 mental health
professions annually, he said.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, March 03, 2010, 23:09