'Save the Doctor' movement held Thursday

Medical students under the aegis of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and the Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) organised a "Save the Doctor" campaign Thursday.

The movement is being held nationwide and is aimed at urging policy makers in the country to have equal number of undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) medical seats and to address the issue of fewer specialist doctors.

"There are 12,000 PG seats against 40,000 UG seats in India compared to 32,000 PG seats against 19,000 UG seats in the US. This is the main reason behind brain drain. Many MBBS graduates cannot fulfil their dream of a career in the medical field as it is difficult to obtain a post-graduate seat," said "Save the Doctor" campaign coordinator Navneet Motreja.

The campaign also aims to make authorities include rural posting in internship and postgraduate training.

"IMA supports rural posting. But in the present situation, making it compulsory is not feasible because there is no structured posting in rural areas," said IMA Secretary Narendra Saini.

"According to a Right to Information which we filed, only 2,866 vacancies are there in rural areas but we are producing 40,000 doctors. The rest will be waiting for their rural posting and stuck with nowhere to go as they are not eligible to take up their PG entrance exams too," added Saini.

Around two-three lakh students have created an association to fight the issue and are circulating an online appeal, to be sent to the union health minister.