The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry seems keen on the rural health care graduate course, which seeks to strengthen health services in rural areas which are woefully short of professionals.
A Parliamentary Standing Committee had rejected the government’s proposal for a ‘Bachelor of Rural Health Care’ course — since re-named Bachelor of Science (Community Health) and recommended options like mandatory rural posting after MBBS internship, increasing the number of nursing graduates and postgraduates who could be posted at the health sub-centre level as well as sending AYUSH (Indian systems of medicine) professionals to health sub-centres. But in 2010 the Delhi High Court had asked the Centre to implement it.
The government says it will “find a way out.” The National Board of Examination has already prepared the curriculum.
The NBE was brought into the picture after the Medical Council of India recommended changes in the original course drafted by the Directorate General of Health Services and refused to notify it because ‘it had no competence since it was not a medical course.’
The Health ministry thinks the proposal for a Rural Medical Corp., with three year training would create medical professionals for sub-centre and primary health centre level.
(aarti.dhar@thehindu.co.in)
