Health Ministry Counts 13,01,319 Allopathic Doctors, and 5.65 lakh AYUSH doctors in India

Apart from the allopathic practitioners, there are 5.65 lakh AYUSH doctors, 2.89 lakh registered dentists, 33.41 lakh registered nursing personnel and 13 lakh Allied and Healthcare Professionals in the country, revealed the data presented by the Union Health Ministry before the Rajya Sabha.

The MoS Health was responding to a number of questions including the total number of allopathic doctors in India, doctor population ratio, Government initiatives for increasing the number of doctors, details of the health mission launched by the Government etc.

Answering to these queries Dr. Pawar informed the upper house in the Parliament that "As per information available, there are 13,01,319 allopathic doctors registered with the State Medical Councils and the National Medical Commission (NMC) as on November, 2021. The doctor-population ratio is 1:834 in the country assuming 80% availability of registered allopathic doctors and 5.65 lakh AYUSH doctors. Further, there are 2.89 lakh registered dentists, 33.41 lakh registered nursing personnel and 13 lakh Allied and Healthcare Professionals in the country."

"The numbers of PG seats have increased by 93% from 31,185 seats before 2014 to 60,202 seats including DNB and CPS seats. The number of UG seats have increased from 51,348 before 2014 to 89,875 seats as of date which is an increase of 75%," she added.

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National Health Mission (NHM):

Providing the details regarding the Health Mission launched by the Central Government, the MoS Health referred to the National Health Mission (NHM) and mentioned, "Government of India, under the National Health Mission (NHM), provides financial and technical support to States/UTs to strengthen their healthcare systems including support for recruitment of doctors, para-medical staff and technicians on contractual basis, within their overall resource envelope."

"Under NHM, support is also provided to States/UTs for hard area allowance to specialist doctors for serving in rural and remote areas and for their residential quarters so that they find it attractive to serve in public health facilities in such areas. Support for honorarium to Gynecologists/ Emergency Obstetric Care (EmoC) trained, Pediatricians & Anesthetist/ Life Saving Anaesthesia Skills (LSAS) trained doctors is also provided to increase availability of specialists for conducting Cesarean Sections in rural & remote area. The States are also encouraged to adopt flexible norms for engaging specialists at public health facilities. These include various mechanisms for 'contracting in' and 'contracting out' of specialist services, empanelling private medical facilities to provide requisite Specialists and other methods of engaging specialists outside the government system for service delivery at public health facilities and the mechanism to include requests for these in the state Program Implementation Plans (PIP) under the National Health Mission," she added.

Steps to Increase Availability of doctors in India:

One of the many questions that the Minister of State in the Union Health Ministry was dealing with was the steps taken by the Government for increasing the number of doctors in India.

Responding to this, she referred to the following steps taken by the Government for increasing the availability of doctors in India-

"i. Centrally Sponsored Scheme for establishment of new medical college by upgrading district hospital under which 157 new medical colleges have been approved and 70 are already functional.

ii. Centrally Sponsored Scheme for strengthening/ upgradation of existing State Government/Central Government Medical Colleges to increase MBBS and PG seats.

iii. Central Sector Scheme for upgradation of Government Medical Colleges by construction of Super Specialty Blocks. A total of 75 projects have been approved and 55 have been completed.

iv. Under Central Sector Scheme for setting up of new AIIMS, 22 AIIMS have been approved. Undergraduate courses have started in 19 AIIMS.

v. Relaxation in the norms for setting up of Medical College in terms of requirement for faculty, staff, bed strength and other infrastructure.

vi. Enhancement of maximum intake capacity at MBBS level from 150 to 250. vii. Enhancement of age limit for appointment/ extension/ re-employment against posts of teachers/dean/principal/ director in medical colleges upto 70 years.

viii. The ratio of teachers to students has been rationalized to increase the number of postgraduate medical seats in the country."