The decision of the Cabinet on Sunday to sanction seven new medical colleges will further bolster the ratio of doctors per one thousand population in the State which is already much higher than the national average and the World Health Organisation norms.
The State has about 37,000 doctors registered with the Telangana Medical Council and every year nearly 3,600 medical graduates pass out of colleges. While the national average is 1 : 1,456 and WHO prescribed 1 : 1,000, the ratio in Telangana is about 1 : 900 for a population of 3.5 crore. However, the ratio is poor in rural areas because there are fewer takers for government jobs.
Telangana has nine medical colleges in government and twenty-three in private sector, beside the ESI institution in Hyderabad and Bibinagar campus of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where nearly 6,500 seats are available for admission in the first year of MBBS. With the commissioning of the seven new medical colleges whenever it takes place, the seats will go up to 7,200 even if the intake is considered at the base level of 100 per college.
There are also 2,000 post-graduate seats in six out of nine government colleges. The colleges at Nalgonda, Suryapet and Siddipet are yet to apply for PG seats.
The Cabinet approved the colleges at Nagarkurnool, Wanaparthy, Mancherial, Jagtial, Sangareddy, Mahbubabad and Kothagudem. But, their opening will take time because the government has to set up 300 bed hospitals for each college, beside other infrastructure before making a formal application to the Ministry of Health, which will in turn direct the Medical Council of India to look into the permissions.
Of the 6,500 MBBS seats available in every batch across the State, the private colleges and ESI account for 5,000 seats. The first batch with fifty students was admitted at AIIMS only last year. In the government sector, Osmania, Gandhi and Kakatiya medical colleges have 250 seats each while colleges in Mahbubnagar and Siddipet have 175 seats, Nalgonda and Suryapet 150 each and Nizamabad and RIMS Adilabad 120 each.
According to Dr. B. Karunakar Reddy, Vice-Chancellor, Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences, barring four at Karimnagar, Narketpally and Mahbubangar, all the private medical colleges had proliferated around Hyderabad. The pass percentage of final year students who took the exams in April - May was 96.
