Medical Fraternity Lists its Priorities And Expectations From the New Government

Hyderabad: The medical fraternity placed a range of demands for the next government, hoping that highlighting them before the elections will force political parties to react.

Strengthening primary healthcare, addressing quackery and assaults on doctors, better infrastructure, providing quality education in government medical colleges, enhanced stipend and transfer policies are the major issues that the doctors want highlighted.

Dr Rangareddy Burri, president of Infection Control Academy of India and public health policy adviser, told Deccan Chronicle, “There are many assurances that the previous governments had given but failed to implement. One of the primary concerns is the rampant quackery practices. The government has failed to curb the menace despite several representations from doctors.”

He said the government was overlooking the spate of assaults on doctors, who are getting demotivated in the absence of measures to protect them. He also said that the new government must focus on prevention of communicable and non-communicable diseases as per the universal health coverage, which was deliberated during the G-20 Summit.

Dr M. Karuna, paediatrician at Niloufer Hospital, underlined the need to create a common platform to guide the economically weak patients towards government hospitals and more research by doctors alongside policy makers to come up with pragmatic health policies.

Many doctors opined that primary health care facilities should be the focus of development for public health, instead of concentrating only on tertiary care.

Dr Kiran Madhala, member, TS Indian Medical Association (scientific committee) called for strengthening primary healthcare.

“The government is primarily focusing on tertiary care. It  should give equal priority to public health care and strengthen it by having experts in different specialties on-board. Moreover, the budget for health, which is at 4 per cent currently, ought to be increased so that better infrastructure facilities can be put in place,” he said.

While many demanded better living and working conditions in government medical colleges in the interiors, Dr Srinivas G., general secretary, Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA), said that new government should ensure salaries to the government medical professors that are at par with their peers in NIMS and AIIMS, timely transfers and postings of assistant professors and regular salaries to contractual health workers at various levels.

Further, they said that new medical colleges should also boast of quality faculty.

Dr Shyam Jaiswal, consultant neurologist at a leading multi-specialty private hospital, said that there was a need to spread awareness about stroke in all government hospitals, which should also have special stroke corridors similar to green corridors. Post-stroke rehabilitation is a must in the state, he said.