Becoming general practitioner an individual choice, says Goa health minister Vishwajit Rane

PORVORIM: No separate list is maintained of private general practitioners (GP) who make home visits for senior citizens and bedridden persons, health minister Vishwajit Rane stated.
Responding to questions by Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardessai over steps the government is taking to encourage younger doctors to practice as GPs and to ensure that senior citizens and bedridden patients have access to a GP, Rane stated that “it is an individual choice”.
Rane provided the same response to a question seeking reasons why younger doctors are choosing to specialise rather than opting for a career as a family physician.
TOI recently reported that GPs in Goa have become rare over the past decade. Last year, when health services advertised posts to hire MBBS doctors to posts in various hospitals in view of additional workload due to rise in Covid cases, the response was extremely poor.
The IMA-Goasaid that fewer GPs in Goa compared to other states and metros could be due to other states having fewer postgraduate seats and Goa Medical College not offering specialisation in GP.