BAMS to fill up MBBS vacancies in Maharashtra

Justifying the move, Vijay Satbir Singh, additional chief secretary (health) explained to HT, "In a rough comparison, we have 100 applications from BAMS doctors against one from an MBBS doctor. We will fill these posts on a temporary basis, so that every citizen has access to medical care."

The move comes in the light of severe shortage of medical practitioners in the government hospitals and in particular in the primary health centres of the state. Currently the state has more than  100 district and sub-district government hospitals, 12 maternity hospitals, as well as 1,811 primary health centres. Each PHC is supposed to have at least two doctors (MBBS or PG degrees) but vacancies go upto as high as one third, reports DNA

The move has strongly met opposition from Indian Medical Association who alleged  government should focus on improving infrastructure and wages, instead of hiring BAMS doctors. “It will not only affect the quality of medical care, but also promote cross-pathy — the practice of prescribing homoeopathy and ayurvedic drugs along with allopathy medicines — as these doctors will end up prescribing allopathic medicine with no training whatsoever. Doctors ignore the posts due to red-tape, low salaries and bad infrastructure, not because of the village or tribal setting,” Dr Sagar Mundada, Youth Wing President of IMA told HT.