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State Health Minister Surya Kanta Misra, while refusing to discuss the details of the Bill, said it will be a three-year diploma course.
Satyajit Chakrabarty, secretary, Association of Health Service Doctors, said, “We want it to be made clear this is not a short-term medical course. Since this diploma will not be recognised by the Medical Council of India, they cannot write ‘doctors’ before their names and will not be allowed to hand out death certificates. There is a lot of confusion about it. We want clarity.”
He, however, said they were not entirely against the course since it could aid health care at the gram panchayat level.
“Those applying for the course should at least have a high school degree, much like the nurses’ training course,” said Chakrabarty.
Md Masiha, the chief government whip, said the state government had already drafted the entire Bill, which the subject committee has examined and submitted a report to the Assembly.
The state health department is likely to place the Bill in the Assembly on December 14 or 15,” said Masiha.
Meanwhile, Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Manas Bhuniya said the proposed diploma course was “unscientific and detrimental”.
“They did something similar around 10 to 15 years ago but the course had to be discontinued. How can the state government send people without MBBS degrees to villages to treat locals? This course will be illegal as it will not even have the recognition by the Medical Council of India (MCI). How can a person treat a patient without even the recognition from the MCI. There are enough village quacks...why does the state government want to increase their ranks,” said Bhuniya.
He said the Central government is already planning to address the issue of inadequate doctors in the rural sector.
“The central government is planning to introduce a Bill in the coming session of Parliament which will make it mandatory for all the MBBS pass-outs to serve in villages before they take up post-graduation,” he said.
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Why is there a need of this new system? 1. In India more than 75% of the population resides in rural areas or slum areas in the cities. In these places quackery is prevalent; many a times they are not even 10th pass. 2. After 60 years of Independence also we are unable to provide necessary medical and health facilities to the rural and poor population of the country. This is because without understanding the social environment, the need and sanskar of rural India , where 75% of India lives; we had been forcing the rules of Medical Council of India. 3. In general MBBS Doctors never wish to go to rural areas to provide their services. Its well known that whenever any State Government have forced to post/depute them in rural areas under whatever scheme; there had been strikes & they have resigned from their jobs. 4. An MBBS/MS/MD/BAMS/BHMS Doctor who has spend 6 to 10 years of their valuable life time in studies to become specialists and almost 12 to 25 lacs of rupees; is it logical to post them in the interiors where they have to work in adverse conditions without having proper facilities. Moreover we would not be able to tap their full expertise there in rural areas and it is a waste of skilled manpower. 5. It has been observed that 80% of illness is in primary levels which can be tackled by rural level health practitioners. In case of emergencies & typical cases these practitioners would refer the patient to senior Doctors in urban areas. 6. Rural people are often unable to beer the cost of medical services of Doctors and go to quacks where they feel that they would save money. Government is unable to stop quackery because it has not been able to provide viable and justified replacements to the quacks. Thus the above-proposed Diploma Course would help to stop quackery and replace them with qualified heath practitioners.