Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s pet scheme envisaging a new three-and-a-half year Bachelor of Science (Community Health) course aimed at creating mid-level health professionals for rural areas, has come to naught.
After the Parliamentary panel rejected the course four months ago, the Union Cabinet too has decided to tread cautiously, asking the Union Health Ministry to seek views from the States before making it a reality. This has put the brakes on the future of the course, which was proposed to be started from academic year 2013-’14. Indian Medical Association (IMA) has already rejected the proposal.
A senior official in the Ministry said that the proposal was sent to the Union Cabinet for its approval but it has reverted asking that before its implementation, there was a need to get the States on board. “We are now writing to the State Governments seeking their comments. We will also soon hold a meeting with them in this regard,” the official said.
The course duration is proposed to be of three years with six months of rotational internship. Candidates eligible for the course will be those who have completed 10+2 exams with Physics, Chemistry and Biology as their subjects. Admission and deployment will be district-based as far as possible, the official said.
After acquiring this degree, the graduates will be employed as Community Health Officers (CHOs) by States, as per the proposal. In May 2013, the Parliamentary panel had taken suo moto cognisance on the proposed course and opposed its introduction and instead recommended one year compulsory rural posting for medical graduates so that the shortage of doctors is met in rural areas.
The IMA had been opposing the course saying that there were better ways to overcome the shortage of modern medicine professionals in rural area. “lowering the standard of medical education and producing low-quality professionals is not the solution,” they alleged.
However, Azad seeking its introduction has been trying to allay fears saying that the course was meant to replace MBBS or specialist doctors. The proposal envisages training persons from rural areas on the basis of merit to equip him or her to “primarily work in 1,45,000 sub-centres, or at the most in Primary Health Centre,” he had said.