Government to Establish More Medical Colleges

Due to the overburdening of AIIMS, the Central Government is planning to expand their network of medical colleges across the country as Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, also pushing for relaxation in medical council and municipal norms to achieve that goal. As per the media reports, the network of medical colleges in the country will expand in the big way as the government believes in the promotion of high-quality tertiary care services and expansion of medical education in the country.

Jaitley suggested that "over-involvement' in the past had led to "crisis" for AIIMS and asked the Health Ministry to play a supportive role without getting into "micro-management" of the institution.

."We need more medical colleges. Both public and private sector education has expanded. But medical colleges are still inadequate. A review of the policy is required as far as increasing the number of medical schools is concerned," said Jaitley.

He noted that India is capable of producing "huge" human talent as one out of every seven patients in the US is treated by a doctor of Indian origin while a large part of British healthcare is managed by Indian doctors. "We need to expand quality institutions. The restraints on the great hospitals - unavailability of contiguous land, inability to have medical colleges next to it -- needs a serious review. We have ready-made hospitals of excellence which have worked for decades and there is no reason why, by relaxing municipal laws and medical council regulations, we are not able to encourage the expansion of a few hundred more medical colleges in India."