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Tackling the problem of doctors unwilling to serve

An issue we have covered before in Health Issues India is the seeming unwillingness of Indian doctors to serve in rural areas. This might seem counter-intuitive as about 72% of the Indian population still lives in rural areas. Still, only 26% of doctors in India reside in rural areas.

This anomaly leads to situations where people in rural areas have to travel hundreds of miles, often to big cities, in search of quality health care. The lack of appropriate health care in rural areas also gives rise to informal health practitioners and their even poorer cousins, the “quacks.”

What can be done to increase the level of health care in rural areas? One positive step is the recent introduction of a three-and-a-half year long medical course approved by the Medical Council of India, which will be open to anyone after the 12th standard.

Read this Times of India article for more information on this development

1 thought on “Tackling the problem of doctors unwilling to serve”

  1. Countries such as the UK and the US make this worse as they try to address similar problems of their own. Few British or American doctors will work in very deprived or remote rural areas so both countries offer incentives and visas to Indian doctors. India pays a fortune to train doctors to work in Europe and North America (as do many other developing countries which train medical staff in English)

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