JOIN USMCI okays curricula for 3.5 yrs
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has approved the curricula for a 3.5 years long course in Bachelor of Science, focusing on community healthcare, that may pave the way for creating a new cadre of trained professionals to deliver basic health care services in villages across the country.
“Their skills will be higher than the auxiliary nurse and midwives (ANM), currently running village sub centres, but lower than that of MBBS doctors,” Vinod Paul, a professor of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) who headed the MCI team to frame the curriculum for Bachelor of Rural Health Course told Deccan Herald.
The cadre of rural health care professionals will form the base of a new public health cadre as proposed by the Planning Commission.
The government will have to create special schools at district hospitals to teach these BRHC graduates and prepare text books before the new scheme is rolled out. The faculty will comprise government doctors or professors as well as doctors serving in those district hospitals where the schools will be set up.
Going by the health ministry's own statistics, there is only one doctor for a population of more than 35,000 people in rural India, which is substantially below the global standard set by the World Health Organisation of one doctor for 250 people.
Thousands of primary healthcare centres are without a single doctor, and geographical distribution of doctors in the PHCs were skewed against backward states. As 74 per cent of doctors prefer to practise in cities and towns, close to 80 per cent of India, which is village, remains un-served even in terms of basic healthcare.
The rural healthcare cadre was conceived to render basic primary healthcare, give ambulatory treatment, provide first aid in case of emergency and push public health action in villages. The serious cases will be referred to the secondary or tertiary care centres.“There is no competition with MBBS doctors,” Paul said.