LDF may drop new medical colleges

Thiruvananthapuram: The LDF government is unlikely to go ahead with the setting up of new medical colleges as announced by the UDF government and will develop three other existing medical colleges. The government will focus on developing the existing medical colleges hospitals (MCH) at Kozhikode, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram to AIIMS standards, Health Minister K.K. Shailaja told reporters here.

“We have said categorically in our manifesto that our aim will be to prevent saturation of existing general hospitals and medical colleges by boosting services provided locally at community health centres (CHC),” she said. “The people should be able to solve their health issues at CHCs and primary health centres.  CHCs will be developed into family health centres (FHC) which can manage complications arising from life style diseases.”

The UDF government had declared that Idukki, Mancheri, Palakkad and Thiruvananthapuram general hospitals would be made medical colleges but had not provided for the infrastructural facilities and the staff strength remained inadequate. The then government had also said more medical colleges were in the pipeline.

“We are yet to study the situation where hospitals metamorphosise into medical colleges,” Ms Shailaja said, adding “We will recruit doctors from the existing PSC rank list to all hospitals.” The minister said the government had taken no decision on the proposal to extend the retirement age of doctors to 65.

“The service period of a handful of senior doctors has been extended as we will need their expertise,” she said. “We have studies which suggest a 10 per cent increase in infectious diseases in the future and our efforts are to minimise its impact.”