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Written By: Admin | Updated : August 6, 2013 3:27 PM IST
Unless you've been living under a rock or a similar place you must have come across the 'Save the Doctor' campaign on social media. The campaign was launched to pressurise the government to equal the number of PG and UG MBBS seats. indiancolleges.com caught up with the coordinator of the campaign, Dr Navneet Motreja, for a Q&A session:
How did the idea for this campaign come about?
After completing our MBBS course, we found ourselves stranded. There are 45,600 MBBS seats but only 12,000 Postgraduate seats in clinical subjects, while the USA has 19,000 UG seats and 32,000 PG seats, about double the number. This problem is faced by lakhs of doctors every single year. We then approached prominent doctors such as Dr Devi Shetty and Dr Narendra Saini to help us out.
How has the response been so far?
The response has been outstanding. It has been 5 days since we launched our campaign Save The Doctor. We got more than 6,500 appeals to the Honourable Union Health Minister, more than 18,000 supporters on Facebook and more than 36,000 views of our campaign video on YouTube!
Considering how slow our policy-makers are towards public petitions, is there any other avenues you are looking to pursue to pressurize the government?
The Government is by the people, of the people and for the people. Sheer strength in terms of numbers is the only way we will get what we want. We will demand our right to quality healthcare in India. And I assure you, that this move will benefit the government as well (as they will get more specialist doctors in India). It won't be long before the government sits up and takes notice!
What is the fallout of such a situation?
Thousands of MBBS graduates disregard their dream of pursuing a career in the medical field as it is so difficult to secure their future by obtaining that valuable post-graduate seat. How will a doctor then support of his family? How will a doctor then face his counterparts from other professions or in society in general? Some take up alternative careers like a job at a call centre, while others suffer from severe depression and often culminate in suicide.
How have college faculty, senior doctors and other experts in the field reacted towards the campaign?
Be it the healthcare practitioners or pre- and para-clinical faculty, all of them have gone through the same system. Additionally, in today's day and age of fierce competition, it makes it all the more difficult compared to the previous years. Hence they are in full support of the Save The Doctor campaign.
If the PG seats are indeed increased, do you think the colleges will be able to handle the sudden influx of students? Are the faculty, infrastructure and system already in place to handle this?
Right now the teacher-student ratio in majority of the PG courses all over the country is 1:1. Making it 1:2 or 1:3 will not drastically affect the quality of post graduate medical education, because ultimately, every patient is our textbook. In India, for every 2,000 citizens, we have just 1 doctor. 40% less than the world average! That leaves us with a shortage of over 10,00,000 post graduate doctors. (Read:Why the Govt's decision to send MBBS students to rural India is flawed)
What message do you have for the students who are currently preparing for exams to try to get a PG seat or are currently doing their UG?
Today, we are not just demanding MD and MS seats. We are demanding the future of our nation's healthcare system. The way things are going, we can bet that when senior doctors retire in the future, we'll be importing surgeons from other countries!
It is time we demand our right...
It is time the nation wakes up to our plight...
Let us unite and ensure our voices are heard...
Is there any way that readers of this article can help?
It is our humble request to all the earnest citizens of our country.
Please log onto www.savethedoctor.in and SEND THE APPEAL to the honourable Union Health Minister.
The hottest rung in hell is reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. Dante Alighieri
Content Source: www.indiancolleges.com
