Hubballi:
Medical education minister
D K Shivakumar said on Saturday that he would consider making rural service mandatory for MBBS students who get free seats. He spoke after a meeting with officials of Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (
KIMS) here on Saturday.
Shivakumar said, "The government is not interested in levying fines on students. That method has failed to give the desired results and is also being contested in court. So, we will look into the Maharashtra model, where doctors will not get their permanent registration number without serving in rural areas for a certain period of time. This will address 70-75% vacancies of doctors in rural areas.”
“We are planning to increase the fees for medical courses and the funds raised will be used for the development of hospitals, said Shivakumar. He told reporters that a major portion of the fees being paid by medical students directly goes to the university and the rest is used for hospital development, which is not sufficient.
“However, I am open to take suggestions from public and experts in the medical field,” he added.
When MLA Prasad Abbayya alleged that private labs and scanning centres were in a nexus with authorities of KIMS, Shivakumar instructed all government hospitals and medical colleges to video record their moveable and non-moveable assets.
A detailed report on the number of equipment and the present condition of the same should be submitted to the government soon, said Shivakumar.
He said this after being informed that equipment and hospital properties were being ‘stolen’. Recently, a huge cache of equipment was found in a medical officer’s house in Hubballi. “There is a need to fix accountability on the hospital property and this record will make sure that equipment don’t go missing,” said Shivakumar.
Kundgol MLA C S Shivalli alleged that the hospitalhas not been functioning up to the mark despite the government releasing several crores.
‘Centre succumbed to
TN pressure on Cauvery’
Shivakumar, who also holds the Water Resources Ministry, said the Union government has succumbed to pressure from Tamil Nadu and notified the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA). “Though our chief minister H D Kumaraswamy had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi over holding widespread consultation over constituting CWMA, the Union government went ahead unilaterally,” he said, adding that the state government would take legal course to counter the injustice.
