Health dept plans network of medical researchers, policy makers

In order to create a network of the medical / public health researchers, policy makers, administrators and medical representatives, the State Health and Family Welfare department has planned to convene meetings with researchers once in three months.

Addressing mediapersons on Saturday, Health and Family Welfare Minister U T Khader said that there was a lack of coordination between the medical researchers, representatives and policy makers, due to which the latest research developments were not adopted by the medical fraternity and the government.

The department will henceforth discuss with the researchers well in advance before taking up any health project and amend the project accordingly, based on the inputs from the research organisations. A dialogue has to take place on a regular basis between the researchers and policy makers so that research results can be utilised to address health issues, he said.

Meanwhile, he said that the department is contemplating to offer brainstorming sessions to district and taluk health officers through the researchers, to update them about the latest developments in the medical field.

A team of public health researchers under the banner ‘Swasthya Karnataka’ has been doing several activities and the department intends to join hands with them. Trainings will be provided to nurses and auxillary nurse mid-wives to handle the patients with care, Khader said.

Avoid post-mortem?

The Minister also floated the idea of exempting the system of post-mortem in normal death cases that do not have medico-legal significance. “Post-mortem procedure is conducted even on the normal death cases or accident cases which in reality does not need a post-mortem report as the family members are well aware of the cause of death.

Therefore, I have just expressed my opinion which is open for discussion,” he said. To a query on setting up a government medical college in the city, the Minister said there were glitches to acquire 20 acre land for the purpose.

According to the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, a 300 bedded hospital and an availability of 20 acre land is mandatory to get a clearance to construct the medical college. Though the State cabinet has approved the recommendations of the cabinet sub-committee to sanction medical college in Mangalore, the MCI is yet to approve the same. The team from MCI will visit the city to inspect the facilities in 2015, Khader said.