Very difficult to post MBBS doctors in rural areas: Azad

Arguing that it was very difficult to post MBBS doctors in rural areas, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said the proposed Bachelor of Rural Health course was targeted at areas where only nurses and midwives were available and no doctor was willing to go.

Azad is understood to have made these comments at a meeting with a delegation of the Indian Medical Association, who have opposed the introduction of such a course saying it will clash with MBBS doctors.

The IMA demanded that the rural medicine should be a diploma course and not a degree course, and that the institutes that will teach this course should be called schools instead of colleges and there should be separate registration for these rural doctors.

Responding to these demands, Azad, even as he allayed their fears, said making the rural medicine course a diploma would dilute its importance.

He said the doctors would be posted in areas where only auxiliary nurses were available.

"MBBS doctors are difficult to post in rural areas. Our main concern is how to improve rural healthcare," Azad reportedly told the delegation.

Asking the MCI to be more "enthusiastic" about the proposal, he said, "the doctors would be posted at places where only ANMs are present and MBBS doctors are unlikely to be posted".

He said the government had already diluted many provisions like by not making surgery a part of the course.

The IMA delegation included its chief Dharamprakash and the regional heads of the state IMA units.