Guwahati: Assam, which has the highest maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the country at 390 per 1,000 live births, also faces a serious crunch of doctors. So the state is now rolling out rural health workers, upgrading skills and making it mandatory for medical students to practise in villages.
Prateek Hajela, mission director of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Assam, said the state has been adopting a host of initiatives to tackle the issue.
"Lack of doctors and trained specialists, even nurses, is a huge problem in Assam. I don't think lack of infrastructure is that big a problem. I mean, we have first referral units which are non-functional because of dearth of manpower," Hajela told IANS.
Admitting to the seriousness of the issue — lack of manpower — in the face of an already critical problem of high MMR, Assam has thus been designing new courses and implementing new laws to retain its human resources and upgrade the skills of existing health workers.
"The Assam government's own health university, the Srimanta Sankardeva University of Health Sciences, which was established in 2009, offers a three-and-a-half-year training programme, at the end of which, one can practise as a rural health practitioner," Hajela said.
"It is a diploma programme and one can enrol right after Grade 12. These rural health practitioners are posted in the sub centres and health facilities at the village level, and are capable of handling complicated deliveries, but not a C-section. That can only be conducted by a specialist," he added.
Hajela said these health workers can largely fill the void left behind by doctors. Three batches, constituting 300 students, are already enrolled in this course.
Then again, considering that a number of medical students from Assam go outside the state for specialisation, and then stay back to work in bigger hospitals, the state decided to upgrade the skills of existing doctors in government hospitals.
Skills upgrade
"We have created our own course which aims at skills upgrade of doctors. It's a two-year diploma programme and will help enhance his or her skills to deal with more complicated cases in a better manner," Hajela said.
The course is approved by the Medical Council of India and will be on offer from this year.
According to Hajela, despite the course not giving doctors the tag to practise as a gynaecologist, government hospital doctors "are willing" to enroll.
To address the issue of dearth of nurses, the government has also introduced a six-month Auxillary Nurse Midwife course, after which one will reach the same level as a General Nurse Midwife.
"There is a dearth of doctors, paediatricians and nurses; and the government knows that it cannot compete with the market when it comes to luring these professionals. So we have to come up with innovative techniques to either retain them or somehow plug the hole," he said.
For instance, the government was in a dilemma when doctors did not respond to its call to work in the river island Majuli in Assam which desperately needed good health services.
Prateek Hajela, mission director of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Assam, said the state has been adopting a host of initiatives to tackle the issue.
"Lack of doctors and trained specialists, even nurses, is a huge problem in Assam. I don't think lack of infrastructure is that big a problem. I mean, we have first referral units which are non-functional because of dearth of manpower," Hajela told IANS.
Admitting to the seriousness of the issue — lack of manpower — in the face of an already critical problem of high MMR, Assam has thus been designing new courses and implementing new laws to retain its human resources and upgrade the skills of existing health workers.
"The Assam government's own health university, the Srimanta Sankardeva University of Health Sciences, which was established in 2009, offers a three-and-a-half-year training programme, at the end of which, one can practise as a rural health practitioner," Hajela said.
"It is a diploma programme and one can enrol right after Grade 12. These rural health practitioners are posted in the sub centres and health facilities at the village level, and are capable of handling complicated deliveries, but not a C-section. That can only be conducted by a specialist," he added.
Hajela said these health workers can largely fill the void left behind by doctors. Three batches, constituting 300 students, are already enrolled in this course.
Then again, considering that a number of medical students from Assam go outside the state for specialisation, and then stay back to work in bigger hospitals, the state decided to upgrade the skills of existing doctors in government hospitals.
Skills upgrade
"We have created our own course which aims at skills upgrade of doctors. It's a two-year diploma programme and will help enhance his or her skills to deal with more complicated cases in a better manner," Hajela said.
The course is approved by the Medical Council of India and will be on offer from this year.
According to Hajela, despite the course not giving doctors the tag to practise as a gynaecologist, government hospital doctors "are willing" to enroll.
To address the issue of dearth of nurses, the government has also introduced a six-month Auxillary Nurse Midwife course, after which one will reach the same level as a General Nurse Midwife.
"There is a dearth of doctors, paediatricians and nurses; and the government knows that it cannot compete with the market when it comes to luring these professionals. So we have to come up with innovative techniques to either retain them or somehow plug the hole," he said.
For instance, the government was in a dilemma when doctors did not respond to its call to work in the river island Majuli in Assam which desperately needed good health services.
