Huge shortfall in healthcare workers

Union minister for law M Veerappa Moily said that India has a huge shortfall of healthcare workers. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that there ought, ideally, to be 2.5 health workers for every 1,000 people, India falls far short of that standard, with 20% less health workers than the WHO’s optimum number.

Moily was speaking at the 38th anniversary of the Bangalore Baptist Hospital, Hebbal. Inaugurating a cancer centre on the occasion, Moily said that the government ought to ensure that healthcare facilities of good quality are available to the poor. “It is an irony that India, in spite of being the favourite destination for medical tourism, has a large population that is denied basic health facilities,” he said.

Moily also said that the curriculum of medical schools ought to be updated, to keep pace with changes in the field and present-day requirements. “We need to have a medical curriculum that could produce social physicians, physicians with social responsibility,” said the Union minister.

Governor HR Bhardwaj was also present at the function. In his brief address, the governor recalled the death of 28 inmates of the Beggar’s Colony in Bangalore in August. “Our heart goes out to these people,” the governor said, underlining the need to ensure that the poor are covered by adequate healthcare.

The new radiotherapy unit of the Bangalore Baptist Hospital will be part of a programme to serve the poor, BELIEVE (Bangalore Linac to Serve the Poor). The centre will have state-of-the-art liner accelerator (Linac) machine with IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy), which can deliver more potent doses of radiotherapy without causing collateral damage, as it is more accurate. The unit is meant to specially benefit marginalised people. There are 11 patients currently under treatment here.