It will take at least 17 more years for the country before it can reach the World Health Organization's (WHO) recommended norm of one allopathic doctor per 1,000 people.

The Planning Commission’s high-level expert group (HLEG) on universal health coverage (UHC), headed by Dr K Srinath Reddy, has predicted the availability of one allopathic doctor per 1,000 people by 2028. It has suggested setting up 187 medical colleges in 17 high-focus states during the 12th and 13th Five-Year Plan to achieve the target.

The number of allopathic doctors registered with the Medical Council of India (MCI) has increased since 1974. In 2011 it stands at 6.12 lakhs––a ratio of one doctor for 1,953 people or a density of 0.5 doctors per 1,000 people. There are 315 medical colleges that are located in 188 of 642 districts.

The HLEG has proposed a phased addition of 187 colleges. It expects that by 2015, under phase A, 59 new medical colleges will admit students in 15 states like Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. By 2017, 13 of these states will have an additional 70 medical colleges, and by 2022, another 58 institutes will be built in two additional phases (2017-2020 and 2020-2022).

The implementation of HLEG's recommendations will enable the additional availability of 1.2 lakh doctors by 2017, and another 1.9 lakh doctors between 2017 and 2022.

The World Health Statistics Report (2011) says, the density of doctors in India is six for a population of 10,000. India is ranked 52 among 57 countries facing human resource crunch in healthcare.

India has the largest number of medical colleges in the world, with an annual production of over 30,000 doctors and 18,000 specialists. The average annual output is 100 graduates per medical college in comparison to 110 in North America and 125 in Central Europe.

On the other hand China, which has 188 colleges, produces 1,75, 000 doctors annually, with an average of 930 graduates per institute. This is much higher than India.

Comment

comments...

The reasons are many. And it is ethical not to compare with different states in India. At least in Bihar you do not have medical and engineering colleges based on capitation fee (model). States that you have mentioned have institutions run by non educated people and are there only to make money. And you should be knowing students from Bihar go to all those states you have mentioned in your article and pay non-required high tuition for sub standard education. It is problem of created demand and supply gap.
Nishit Sahay
Washington DC

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Bihari bureaucrats are responsible for this. Other states have a better density due to private medical colleges. Bihar was among the first state to establish private medical colleges. They were very well run. All five private medical colleges were nationalized in 1976 when Jagannath Mishra was the CM. The proposal was mooted by one Mr VS Dubey who was health secretary / commissioner. I dont recall any politician asking for the nationalization of the colleges, much less, any popular movement for the same. One can only conclude that the nationalization was the handiwork of the bureaucrats.

On the day Nalanda MCH was nationalised, its bank account had funds in the bank amounting to Rs 5 crore. VAlue of money was far more then than now. The accounting practices were quite professional and collections and expenditure of funds was well monitored. It had a fairly good infrastructure and some very dedicated and professionally well qualified doctors in several disciplines. Having nationalised them, no attempt was made by the state govt to improve the infrastructure of these medical colleges. The teachers of these colleges were humiliated by demoting them. Most of their qualifications was from foreign universities. So rules were amended to de-recognize the foreign degrees. Well qualified medical professionals were transferred to institutions which had nothing to do with their specialties. One case which was particularly discussed was of a young and dynamic orthopedic who had the highest qualification from UK but was posted in a TB hospital in a muffassil town.

Since then, not even one new medical college came up in Bihar till recently. This situation can change only if we allow private ones to come, Unfortunately, even if we allow private ones today, chances are they will be run by politicians or at least backed heavily by politicians. This will be unlike the ones of 70's which were run by medical professionals like Drs B Mukhopadhaya, Madhusudan Das, JP Singh, RVP Sinha etc

A chance to develop Patna as a medical tourism hub which could have given competition to the likes of Chennai was lost due to the intransigence of some misinformed and misdirected bureaucrats. I hope and pray that good sense prevails now so that good private ones are allowed expeditiously so that medical care can improve in Bihar.
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Thakur Vikas Sinha