Vice President calls for addressing shortage of doctors and paramedical workers

New Delhi, 26 September (H.S): The Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, today called for addressing the shortage of trained human resources in the health sector on a war footing. Noting the low doctor to population ratio at 1:1,511 in India against the WHO norm of 1:1,000, he stressed upon the need for creating more medical colleges in line with the government?s intention of setting up one medical college and hospital in every district of the country.

Referring to the paucity of paramedical staff in the country, Naidu called for improving the nurse to population ratio (1:670 in India, compared to the WHO norm of 1:300) in a mission mode. On the shortage of trained manpower in rural areas, he suggested creating better incentives and infrastructure to attract health care workers to serve in the villages.

Speaking at the convocation of the University College of Medical Sciences, here today, the Vice President noted the improvement in different health indicators since Independence. At the same time, there were many challenges that require a coordinated and concerted approach by both the government and the private sector, he added.

Naidu said that the first step to achieving the goal of ?Health for All? is to increase public spending on health. He referred to the 15th Finance Commission recommendations, which said that states should increase spending on health to more than 8% of their respective budgets by 2022 and the public health expenditure of the Centre and States together should be increased in a progressive manner to reach 2.5 percent of GDP by 2025.

He also called for setting up more state-of-the-art hospitals in rural areas, with proactive participation from the private sector. He observed that medical advice or consultation should be accessible and affordable for the common people.

Lauding the ?critical role? of paramedical personnel in healthcare, the Vice President said the importance of the service they render came to the fore during the pandemic as they worked tirelessly over the past year. He observed that Indian nurses and paramedical staff have earned a great reputation and demand globally over the years with their skills, dedication and caring nature. ? The need of the hour is to leverage the innate skill among our youth to train more allied health workers and assign a larger role for them in our public health?, he added.

Referring to the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission for allocating more than Rs.13,000 crore to train allied health workers, he said it is expected to create an additional 15 lakh workforce.

Speaking on innovation in health care, Naidu observed that e-Health has come up in a big way in recent years and holds promise to mitigate the problem of paucity of doctors in rural areas. ?With increasing internet and smartphone penetration in rural areas, e-health is the way forward for the optimum use of our human resources in healthcare?, he said. eHealth can also empower women and bring about much-needed awareness on maternal health and other issues, Naidu added.