If the proposal is realised, it would fulfil one of the promises made by the BJP in its manifesto for the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections and will serve to create an additional 10,000 MBBS seats in the country
The Health Ministry has proposed to convert 75 district hospitals into medical colleges in the third phase of a scheme which aims at boosting availability of human resource for the health sector.
The proposal is a part of the Centre-sponsored program Human Resources for Health and Medical Education, which was launched for the establishment of new medical colleges by upgrading district or referral hospitals preferably in underserved districts of the country.
In the first phase, the Centre had approved converting 58 district hospitals into medical colleges while in the second phase, 24 hospitals were selected. Out of these 39 hospitals have become functional while the remaining are still under construction.
“The proposal to convert 75 district hospitals into medical colleges in the third phase of the scheme has been sent for approval to the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC), after which it will be sent to the Cabinet,” a source said.
The upgradation of each of the 75 district hospitals into medical colleges would cost around ₹325 crore, according to a draft proposal for the plan. If the proposal is realised, it would fulfil one of the promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its manifesto for the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections.
Under the scheme, the State Governments put in a proposal earmarking hospitals in underserved districts to be converted into medical colleges, in line with the criteria that the district should have no other private or government medical college.
“The scheme aims at meeting the shortfall of human resource in the health sector. Medical colleges are unevenly spread across urban and rural areas of the country presenting wide disparities in the quality of education. The shortfall of human resource in health has resulted in skewing the distribution of health workers such that vulnerable populations in rural, tribal and hilly areas continue to be extremely underserved,” a senior Health Ministry official said.