Karnataka Reforms Panel suggests Complete Ban on Private Practice of doctors

Bengaluru: Taking note of the fact that a large number of government doctors are involved in private practice after their duty hours, the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission -2 (KARC-2) has suggested the State for enforcing a complete ban on private practice of government doctors of all departments.

The panel opined that with the ban on private practice, the government hospitals may become able to start Out Patient Department (OPD) in the evening as well.

Led by former Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar, the Reforms panel said common screening centre staffed with MBBS, nursing and paramedical interns may be started at the out patient department (OPD) counters of hospitals for referral and entering data in e-hospital. Interns and Arogya Mitras may be given tabs to do in situ registration, payment and issue of OPD slips.

“As in Central medical institutes and Central government health system (CGHS), State may ban private practice by government doctors of all departments. This will enable starting of evening OPDs in government hospitals,” the commission said, reports PTI.

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For healthcare in the backward regions and rural areas, Bhaskar said the Taluk Hospitals with higher workload may be provided with additional posts of gynaecologists, paediatrics and anaesthetics specialists against which post-graduate (PG) students may be posted for giving round-the-clock maternity service to reduce MMR (maternal mortality rate) and IMR (infant mortality rate).

The panel also suggested transferring veterinary doctors where they are in excess to four districts of north Karnataka, which lacks enough veterinary clinics.

In his 17-point recommendations summarised in a 11-page press note, Bhaskar also took into account poor representation of government school children in the MBBS government quota seats.

According to Bhaskar, the Central Board of Secondary Education and India Certificate of Secondary Education students forming just 11 of the total class X passed students in Karnataka got 48 per cent of MBBS government quota seats.

Out of the 15 per cent rural government quota MBBS seats, only 3.45 per cent are going to rural government school students.

Rural class X passed CBSE and ICSE students forming mere 5 per cent of the total class X passed students got 51 per cent, which is over 10 times of their proportionate share, of the rural government quota MBBS seats in 2022.

Keeping this fact in mind, Bhaskar suggested that the entire 15 per cent of rural quota should be converted to rural State government school quota.

If private school SSLC board students are also to be considered for the quota, it may be converted to rural SSLC board government quota, the commission said.