Rural services - a draconian measure, say DOC's

Dec 04:  Whenever a proposal is kept or any bill is passed by the parliament, lots of debate starts flooding in the entire nation. And it should be, as the debate is also one of the many reminders that make us remind that we live in a democratic country where freedom of speech, expression and ideas are our fundamental right.

•   E-mail Article
•   Printer Friendly
•   Text-Size    

This time a proposal is meted out by the Union Health Ministry’s to introduce one year compulsory rural service for students of medicine obtaining a degree of MBBS from March next year following the nation-wide protests.

The said one-year duration would be in addition to the five-and-a-half years that the medicos have to become a qualified doctor.

The common presumption behind the bill is that the medical students, who are studying in people’s money, refuse to serve those, who pay for their studies. This might be found true on surveying in the rural areas but no doubt an unhealthy accusation.

Sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned room in a posh city, it is easy to talk about the virtues of services in the villages. Making plan is good but work on the plan accordingly is more essential than mere planning.

Villages lack not only experts, qualified doctors but also basic amenities. Think from the doctor’s perspective who can diagnose but cannot save lives owing to lack of medicines of equipments.

Medical students from pan India have been started participating in the procession against the government’s proposal.

Medical students are of the point of view that an intern is not liable to make any responsible decisions. In case of any negligence, there is no medical officer to supervise us. Instead of sending an under-trainee doctor, we should send an expert who has more experience than a trainee who can serve the community in a better way.

On the contrary, Abhijit Das, Director of Centre for Health and Social Justice, in a strong criticism of doctors who doesn’t want to do rural internship, said that argument didn’t hold water.

“Doctors are supposed to receive their degrees after a year of internship. Consider a situation where you are given a posting after that one-year. In terms of training, you have received the training you are supposed to receive the function autonomously. You are already a doctor. The question is just of deferring the registration of the certificate. Once the certificate is given, I don’t think the doctor will actually return for rural practice,” he said.

Doctors have to work under supervision till date they get the full registration, said Dr Ajay Kumar, National president Indian Medical Association, rejecting Das opinion on medical students.

“If they work in the rural area, they have to be supervised by a qualified doctor otherwise they will act like quacks,” added further. “If they are supervised by qualified doctors in rural areas, it means there are doctors already working. So they are already doing the service, why should one waste the time of the students?”

But Dr Ajay Kumar perhaps forgot that practical training in terms of the familiarity of the village environment for the students coming from the urban city is essential for them to work comfortably after completing the course.

In my opinion medical training camp of 15 days should be organise in villages at different time intervals that would help students in making them village-friendly instead of any draconian measure as considered by them.

To make protest is our fundamental right. But while participating in the protest we should not forget that we live in an independent country and any pernicious activity against our nation hinders the growth and progress of it. SO the protest should be peaceful keeping in mind not to harm the patient. Moreover doctors’ work is to serve the poor and the unprivileged and should avoid the professional (material) attitude that hinders them from sacrifice. Moreover, we can’t forget that services can’t be extracted by force.