Govt may add 10,000 PG Medical seats this year: Report

New Delhi : In an attempt to increase the availability of specialists all over the country, the Government is set to add 10,000 medical seats in the new academic session this year, reports Hindustan.

The Medical Council of India has also cleared a District Hospital Medical Residency Scheme which allows post-graduate students to complete three months of residency in a district hospital. This is meant to tide over the shortage of doctors in these hospitals, this story adds. Alok Kumar, adviser for health at the government think-tank, NITI Aayog also posted about it on social media.

Earlier, few states had opposed the proposed scheme arguing that transferring students to district hospitals would affect the availability of doctors in hospitals attached to the medical colleges, says Hindustan.

Currently, there are more than 23,000 PG and 68,500 undergraduate medical seats across government and private colleges.

Major Medical Crisis
According to the Health Ministry Data, there is a shortfall of 82 percent of doctors in the country, specialists in particular. There aren’t enough surgeons, physicians and pediatricians. In some states, including Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, there is a 90 percent shortage of doctors.