Medical education, treatment should be affordable: Vice President Naidu

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has said that medical education and treatment should be affordable.

On Sunday, while speaking at the 11th Annual Medical Teachers' day awards function, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has said that the medical education and treatment should be affordable for the common man.

He pointed that nearly one lakh Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) graduates pass out each year but not all of them are able to further join post-graduate medical courses.

There is a huge demand for post-graduate medical education and to meet this demand, the National Board has permitted students to receive training at private hospitals. This training is under the strict supervision of the National Board of Examinations (NBE), which conducts periodic audits of every hospital, he added.

He also said that nearly 60 percent of India's population lives in the villages and hence the 3 to 5 years of service in the rural areas was essential for the young doctors. Naidu said there is a need to increase the number of medical colleges and he also appreciated the central government's plan to establish at least one medical college in each district to improve the health sector and medical education in each district of states. The government is also pushing to bridge the gap in the doctor-patient ratio in the country. As per the WHO norm, this ratio should be 1:1000 and in India, it was 1:1456. The ratio gets affected as most medical professionals want to work in urban parts of the country.

The Vice President said the medical students must practice high ethical and moral standards and remain wedded to the right cause to protect their patients and also the interests of the profession.

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