Docs moot Indian Health Service on the lines of IAS

Finding fault with the health policy initiatives by the Centre, Indian Medical Council Member Dr K Ramesh Reddy, a professor at Niloufer Hospital, stressed on an urgent need to create ‘Indian Health Service’ on the lines of Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service for formulating policies and its implementation.

Speaking at a round table discussion on ‘Draft National Health Policy 2015’ organised by Social Cause at Osmania University campus on Sunday, Ramesh pointed out that it was not resources and talented manpower, but lack of proper administration and policies making ‘Health for All’ a far cry in the country.

According to him, “India is presently producing 56,000 medical graduates and 36,000 post graduates every year. There are over 9 lakh medical practitioners in the country and the government has been phenomenally increasing health budget in recent years.”

Dr Ramesh deplored all these efforts for failing to ensure affordable healthcare to most of the population. Stating that the government is providing free medical care to about 80 per cent population under Arogya Sri, he suggested extending the same to the remaining population too to reach ‘health for all’ target soon.

He expressed concern that private hospitals are the biggest beneficiaries of Arogya Sri and that government hospitals are failing to take advantage for their development. Referring to the hype being created in the name of establishing AIIMS in every state, the doctor said that merely creating institutions would not help as they are lacking quality medical professionals.

He suggested establishing rural medical colleges to convince students to work in rural areas for four to five years. Former Professor of Gandhi Medical College Dr EA Ashok Kumar expressed concern over growing rural-urban medical care and deplored over the absence of monitoring of functioning of health workers at the grassroots level.

Accusing that the private sector is resorting to several fraudulent practices, Ashok felt the need for policy initiatives to make healthcare in private sector affordable. He said that every nursing home should be made to adopt two villages. He also pointed out absence of research in this sector and depending more and more on foreign countries.

Family medicine specialist Dr Malathi Latha Eppa suggested that the government should provide health insurance to all citizens. She added that the proceedings of the discussion would be sent to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, by February 28, 2015.