PG seats in 14 states to go up

Centre advises expansion of intake at MBBS level

Modalities for more seats were chalked out at a three-day national conference for health ministers and secretaries that began here on Tuesday. The preparatory meeting of state health secretaries took place under the chairmanship of K Chandramouli, secretary, Health and Family Welfare.

The ministry also advised the states to expand the intake of MBBS seats from the existing 150 to 250, which requires a 750-bed teaching facility.
Similarly, efforts will be made to fill the huge shortage of teaching staff at the graduate level.

The ministry has asked states to follow fresh guidelines that allow them to employ Diplomate of National Board holders for teaching and also employ teachers with comparatively lesser work experience. It is believed that this will temporarily bring in 1,300 more teachers into the system.

The curtain raiser on Tuesday decided to postpone the scheduled discussion on the proposed National Eligibility cum Entrance Examination for admission to graduate and post graduate medical courses. 

The ministry, which faced opposition to the proposal for a nationwide entrance test from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, will bring the issue before Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on the final day of the meet on Thursday.

However, the secretary level meet pondered upon the idea of a “merit based, within the quota” entrance test that will satisfy most of the states.

To fill the gap of trained medical experts in rural areas, medical colleges were asked to open courses in Bachelor of Rural Health Care (BRHC) in a big way. BRHC graduates will be placed above Auxiliary Nurse Midwives and slightly below MBBS doctors in service.

The meet also discussed issues of prominence like the multi drug resistant TB, curbing of sex determination tests, and the need for public health laboratories in all the districts.
The meeting also commended the efforts of Karnataka for extending the 108 ambulance facility to pregnant women, medical checkup for eight lakh girl children and introducing infant death audit in two districts.