Governor Droupadi Mumru conferred gold medals to as many as 64 graduates on the third Graduation Ceremony of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi on Friday. A total of 450 students were conferred degrees on Friday in presence of Health Minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi, RIMS Director Dr. DK Singh and Vice Chancellor of Ranchi University, Ramesh Pandey.
“I can suggest no better guiding light for a young doctor than the ideal of service to humanity, especially to the poor and needy persons from rural background,” she Murmu.
Stressing the importance of health facilities in the State, she said that all the stakeholders should aim at nothing less than making RIMS one of the leading medical institutions in the country. “Though this is not going to be easy, it can be done,” she added.
She urged the faculty, students and staff of RIMS to work together in the larger interest of the institution. In order to achieve success, every program, department and centre of RIMS will have to imbibe a work culture that shuns factionalism and unhealthy competition, she added. “At the same time, it should emphasize service orientation, promote creativity and be truly result-oriented,” Murmu said.
According to the Medical Council of India (MCI), the State needs at least 22,500 more doctors to be able to achieve the doctor and patient ratio of 1:1000. At present, Jharkhand produces around 300 doctors annually, and at that pace the State would take around 87 years to achieve the desired doctor and patient ratio as per standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Despite being the leading State-run hospital in Jharkhand, RIMS too is faced against a dearth of qualified doctors.
“Our state needs many more health professionals, of different categories, to fill the huge short fall in the health workforce. RIMS, and similar institutions which are leaders in medical education, have to show the way ahead,” said Murmu.
She suggested RIMS to start holistic distance learning programmes and assembly a repository of learning resources that can be easily accessed by undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the country. “In this era of advanced communication technologies, the whole world can be one’s classroom and every eager learner a potential student,” the Governor said
The Governor asked the graduating doctors to prioritise the health needs of the rural population as people living in the rural areas were devoid of proper health facilities and lacked knowledge about health.