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Doctors protest against proposed rural medical course
They fear second-rate medicos will practice quackery in cities later
| New Delhi | February 04 2010
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Doctors and medical students from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Delhi held a silent protest in New Delhi on Thursday against the Bachelor of Rural Medicine and Surgery (BRMS) course proposed by the Health Ministry to meet the demands of healthcare professionals in rural areas.
The protestors displayed placards and banners outside the India Habitat Centre, the venue for the two-day workshop on 'Alternative Models on Undergraduate Medical Education' even as Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, addressing the delegates inside, sought to allay fears over the move.
“We are against this move by the government which will bring down the standards of medical profession, which is highly respected all over the world,” said V.C. Velayudhan Pillai, a member of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), an organisation of doctors with formal qualification of MBBS or more.
Pillai, who is also heading the group of doctors and medical students fighting against BRMS called the Joint Action Council Against BRMS, added that the proposed course discriminates between the rural and the urban people.
“BRMS will create sub-standard doctors for the rural areas. People living in these areas form 70 percent of our population and deserve the best treatment possible,” he said.
Naresh Chawla, president of IMA's Delhi state branch, Delhi Medical Association, said, “After a few years of practice, the BRMS doctors will move to cities and will serve without a proper degree. This will promote quackery. If the government decides to promote community health workers, it will have a better impact.”
The protest was followed by a meeting by the IMA where a medical students' body to fight against BRMS, called All India Medicos Association (AIMA), was formed. Anirudh Lochan, a Delhi representative of the AIMA, said, “Introducing this course will serve no good unless the infrastructure in the rural areas is strengthened. Instead of spending money on constructing medical colleges in the district hospitals, they should divert it to the existing colleges and increase the number of MBBS seats.”
The AIMA aims to mobilise medical students all over the country against BRMS.
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All those who herald the proposition sought by this article and it includes those who are protesting, must also answer that " Will anyone of those who are protesting against the scheme for creating a pool of doctors in the rural area will themselves turn out from the closed confine of the cosy environment that they are living or are used to, to work in the mud trailed,hardly cosy enough environment of our Indian villages ? If yes than why not protest with letter that we ourselves are ready to go in rural areas and will serve the most needy!
Let me tell you friends that condition of health care is pathetic in rural areas of our country and people who are graduating in medical sciences and allied sectors have their last option rather they call it punishment posting to work in villages.
Today itself AP govt. has to pass on an order that those graduating in medical and allied fields from 2012 onwards will have to compulsorily serve in rural areas for about one year otherwise they will fined to tune of 20 lakhs. ( THE HINDU (AP edition)).
Furthermore this schemes says that graduates from BRMS course will only serve smaller diseases which does not require attention of experts like you. In case of emergency or disease of higher order patient will be referred to higher institutions.
nicely presented.covered almost all areas.
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