Vice President calls for mandatory posting of fresh MBBS graduates in rural areas

NEW DELHI, APRIL 26: To address the shortage of doctors in rural areas the Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that a possible solution could be mandatory posting of fresh MBBS graduates before granting them their first promotion.

The Vice President while addressing the inaugural session of 15th World Rural Health Conference said that the private sector, NGOs and doctors’ organizations like Academy of Family Physicians of India can play a bigger and more participative role in supplementing the efforts of the governments in ending the urban-rural divide. A possible solution to address the shortage of doctors in rural areas could be mandatory posting of fresh MBBS graduates in rural areas before granting them their first promotion, he added.

While the rural-urban divide in terms of providing effective healthcare services exists in many countries, it is particularly more pronounced in the low income countries and developing countries. This is due to shortage of infrastructure and manpower. According to a 2015 report of the ILO, 56 per cent of rural residents worldwide are without legal health coverage as against 22 per cent of urban population. Extreme rural-urban inequities exist in Asia and the Pacific regions, while 83 per cent of Africa’s rural people have no entitlements to health care.

To overcome major bottlenecks in the delivery of an effective healthcare system like low doctor-patient ratio, lack of skilled paramedics and poor infrastructure, the Vice President said that there is a need to have strong political commitment and strong advocacy from relevant national and international organizations with support of nongovernmental organizations.