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The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health is likely to urge the Centre to reconsider its decision to start a Bachelor of Science course in community health.
Members in the panel, particularly from the Opposition parties, feel that allowing such a course in State universities would further weaken the rural healthcare infrastructure.
The next meeting of the committee, headed by Bahujan Samaj Party leader Brajesh Pathak, may witness a discussion on the Government’s decision.
A member in the panel, who did not wish to be named, said he had already urged Pathak to take up the matter with the Centre.
“We had unanimously said in our report that the governments, both at the Centre and States, should encourage medical students to go to rural areas and serve people there. It is time to start a discussion on compulsory rural services considering the plight of the healthcare sector. Despite our opposition, the Government went ahead with the suggestion,” the member said.
A meeting of the Cabinet had cleared the Health Ministry’s proposal to create a separate cadre of healthcare professionals for villages.
The three-year course was aimed at producing health workers, who will be an answer to the increasing number of quacks in rural areas.
“It is clearly understood that a Bachelor of Rural Health Care (the earlier proposed name of the course) is not, and cannot be a doctor.
A BRHC health worker will only be competent to function within the skills provided to her and with no pretence to any superior medical ability,” the Ministry had told the Standing Committee.
However, the Standing Committee opposed the introduction of the course.
It said a very substantial portion of primary healthcare was provided by untrained providers and often by quacks and there was acute shortage of healthcare professionals in rural areas. It asked the Centre to devote its energies towards devising new strategies to overcome the problem.
It recommended that the Government should continue its focus on strengthening the existing healthcare infrastructure by increasing intake of MBBS graduates and by making provision for one year compulsory rural posting for them after internship, which would help in providing healthcare for rural people.
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