Reeling under an acute shortage of doctors in medical colleges and government hospitals, the state government has requested the Medical Council of India to increase the number of seats in private medical colleges from the next academic year.

Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, Medical Education minister Dr Sharana Prakash Patil said, “We have requested the MCI to increase seats in private medical colleges by at least by 20 per cent. This would result in increased admissions, and a larger number of doctors every year who can be recruited for government services.” The minister said it was imperative to increase the number of medical seats to bridge the fast growing gap between demand and availability.

“There has been an increasing demand for specialist doctors in all medical colleges and hospitals. Contrary to the demand, numbers of seats in medical colleges have more or less remained the same over the years and there has been no increase in their numbers. This has affected the government’s move to strengthen medical collages and hospitals across the state,” Dr Patil said.

This chasm between demand and availability was witnessed last year when the government had called for applications for the recruitment of 600 specialist doctors in the form of walk-in-interviews and only 75 doctors responded to it.

Acknowledging that Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology in Bengaluru has been witnessing three times the patients it could attendto, the medical education department has decided to upgrade the institute.

“Currently, patients have to wait anywhere between 15 days and one month to get CTScan report at the Institute. Additional CT-Scan machines will be installed at the institute in a few days and the hospital can also avail of the scanning machine at the neighbouring Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health Hospital. We have also decided to set up four more additional radiation centres in a few months. We are expecting central funding,” Dr Patil said.

Source: Bangalore Mirror

Date: 20 Nov, 2014