Relax Criteria for Medical PG! Private Hospitals rally for Govt Approval to PG Medical Colleges around 200-Bed Facilities

New Delhi: To ensure that an adequate number of specialist doctors are available in India, private hospitals' body has suggested setting up postgraduate medical colleges around 200-bedded hospitals.

The Association of Healthcare Providers (India) has opined that setting up PG medical colleges would be cost-effective as compared to undergraduate (UG) medical colleges.

The Policy and Advocacy Committee of AHPI framed a document "Towards a Healthy India: AHPI's Blueprint for Change" and submitted the same to the Union Government. These suggestions for setting up exclusive PG medical colleges around 200-bedded hospitals have been made by the association in this document, a copy of which is with the Medical Dialogues Team.

AHPI recommended that the only way to ensure Human Resource, especially specialist doctors, in the community health centres is to open 4-5 PGI Chandigarh type of medical colleges exclusively for PG courses.

"Such colleges can be established just around 200- bedded hospital and would be very cost effective as compared to UG medical colleges," the association recommended.

Also Read: Medical Colleges must Implement District Residency Programme in broad specialty areas: Dr VK Paul on tackling Shortage of specialists

Shortage of Specialist Doctors: 

The association has highlighted how community health centres across the country are facing a shortage of specialist doctors. "If we combine allopathic and AYUSH doctors, we are more than meeting WHO norm of one doctor per 1000 population. But when it comes to availability of specialists, we have huge shortage. We are known to have 75% shortage of specialist doctors in community health centres," AHPI highlighted in the document.

Apart from suggesting setting up exclusive PG medical colleges around 200 bedded hospitals, AHPI has also recommended allowing 300+ bedded hospitals to have one medical college. "Same is case with nursing staff and allied health technicians. We may allow 100+ bedded hospitals to have nursing school. This will again be most cost effective, as compared to setting up of new institutes," it suggested. 

As per AHPI, there is a requirement to operationalize in a fast-track mode and initiate reforms in nursing education and their career progression. "Same is case with National Commission for Allied & Healthcare Professionals, which is taking too long a time, having been gazetted in year 2021. Effective functioning of two commissions for nursing & allied health workforce is not only necessary for our own healthcare needs but has huge potentials in generating employment within as well as exporting abroad," it suggested.

NMC Rules for Standalone PG courses: 

As per the existing norms, only the government non-teaching hospitals are allowed to start post-graduate medical courses without running any undergraduate medical college. This permission is not granted to the private medical facilities. 

The National Medical Commission (NMC) has specified in the Post-graduate Medical Education Regulations (PGMER) 2023 that "Existing or proposed non-teaching hospitals owned and managed by government can start post-graduate courses without having undergraduate college, provided they fulfil the norms and procedures prescribed in the Establishment of New Medical Institution, Starting of New Medical Courses, Increase of Seats for Existing Courses and Assessment and Rating Regulations,2023, Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023, Teachers Eligibility Qualifications in Medical Institutions Regulations, 2022, MSR notified by PGMEB (PGMSR-23), Curriculum requirements of respective Speciality as notified/informed from time to time on website or by other methods by Post-Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB), other relevant regulations, explanatory notes, circulars and advisories etc., issued from time to time."

Even the government hospitals, which are permitted to start standalone PG medical courses under the PGMER 2023, must have minimum 220 beds. 

Also Read: 75,000 new medical seats in next 5 years: PM Modi

AHPI Urges Government to Relax Criteria: 

Commenting on the matter, the Director General of AHPI, Girdhar J. Gyani told The Print that large hospitals can easily build a small teaching block adjacent or in the vicinity of the existing facilities and they can also start admitting students, if the Government provides relaxation in the rules for PG courses.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech, where he informed about the Government's aim of adding 75,000 more medical seats over the next five years, the AHPI Chief mentioned that the focus should now be on adding more PG medical seats, instead of just MBBS seats. He also mentioned that even though large private hospitals are allowed to offer Diplomate of National Board (DNB) seats, which are considered equivalent to MD/MS degrees, they are financially not "viable".

Gyani further mentioned that some initial discussion on the proposal of AHPI already took place last week with the senior Niti Aayog officials. Meanwhile, Dr. V.K.Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog told The Print, "We have worked very hard to ensure the quality of training through the DNB course over the years and private hospitals should do more (in terms of offering more seats). However there may be a preference to offer standalone PG courses by some hospitals and that may require regulation but why not?"

Medical Dialogues team had recently reported that as per government statistics, there are altogether 1,12,112 MBBS and 72,627 postgraduate (PG) medical seats available in the medical institutes across the country. 

The AHPI has a network of 19,000 private health facilities in India, many of which are corporate hospitals. Around 1,200 of these hospitals have a capacity of more than 200 beds.

Also Read: 80% Shortfall of Specialist Doctors in CHCs: Health Ministry Report