Don’t intend to change rules on mixed-pathy in Maharashtra, says medical education secretary

Maharashtra medical education secretary Sanjay Deshmukh

There has been a debate over the National Medical Commission Bill in which one clause permits the bridge course for ayurvedic and homoepathic doctors to prescribe allopathic medicines. Maharashtra permits cross-pathy, even as the Centre is supposed to decide on it. Are we thinking of modifying it?

Maharashtra has already come out with a law that ayurvedic doctors can practise allopathy to the extent of knowledge they have applied. These doctors are basically for primary health care, so the “extent of knowledge” would mean basic medical intervention. For homoepathy, there is a six-month bridge course of pharmacology. That combined with their basic graduation will allow them to practise as per what they learn in these courses. This is already in force in Maharashtra and we don’t intend to change it. Some 600 homoepathy doctors are already being trained for mixed-pathy.

While Maharashtra has enough medical colleges, the issue of shortage of doctors has not been addressed. How can this problem be resolved?

We are coming up with one more medical college in Jalgaon, and next year we will have one in Baramati. In Nandurbar’s medical college, there is an issue of infrastructure. We are in the process, but construction of a new building will take time. We are also increasing seats for post-graduation students. Last year, we increased 200 seats, and this year we increased 77 seats. Now there is a proposal for an additional 50 medical seats. We already have 16 medical colleges and five colleges under the municipal corporation apart from these. In addition, in medical colleges, we are in the process of filling vacant positions of teachers. We have advertised for almost 400 posts. Interviews for 300 teachers have been conducted and 100 posts have already been filled.

In Maharashtra, we have been facing issues with candidates under a bond to serve in government hospitals.

Earlier we used to give doctors three years of grace period to complete the bond. From next year, this practice will be stopped. After MBBS, graduates will asked to serve a bond and then taken for counselling. They will not be allowed to appear for the post-graduate exam if they have not served the one-year bond in government hospitals. Doctors may protest against this, but we will stand by our decision.

Maharashtra took some measures to ensure doctors’ security last year after massive protests. Do we plan further measures?

We have handed over security to the Maharashtra State Security Corporation that comes under the home department. The security appointed by them has the power to arrest. Private security agencies do not have power to arrest. The government of Maharashtra has improved the security situation substantially in hospitals.

But while there is Maharashtra Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage of Property) Act, 2010, there is not even a single conviction under it against those booked for attacking doctors.

About that, we need to take information from the home department. We do not know about the conviction numbers.

The Maharashtra government is opting for privatisation in different programmes. The health department released a government resolution (GR) recently to tie up with private medical colleges. Do government medical colleges plan similarly?

In the medical education department, we still do not have any GR on public-private partnership.

A lot of streams in post-graduation go vacant like forensic science. How can government ensure we have takers?

Students will take specialisation where there is better scope. It is not that forensic science seats are going vacant. Even in anatomy we do not have that many takers. Orthopaedics and gynaecologists have scope outside government jobs. In forensic science medicine and anatomy, there is only posting as teaching faculty in government hospitals. Students are not keen to join and we cannot force them to.