While India’s healthcare system is rasping with loopholes, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday that Inia has less than one doctor for every 1,000 population. The number of doctors considering the population is less than the World Health Organization standard, ringing an alarm on the public health crisis of a country, home to over 1.324 billion people.
Minister of state for health Anupriya Patel said as per information provided by the Medical Council of India, there were 10,22,859 allopathic doctors registered with the state medical councils or Medical Council of India as on March 31 this year.
“Assuming 80 per cent availability, it is estimated that around 8.18 lakh doctors may actually be available for active service. It gives a doctor-population ratio of 0.62:1000 as per current population which is estimated to be of around 1.33 billion,” she said. The emphasis of the government was to increase the number of doctors in the country to improve the doctor population ratio, said the minister.
There are 479 medical colleges in the country with an intake capacity of 67,218 MBBS seats. 12,870 MBBS seats have been added in the last three years, she said.
Notably, a doctor population ratio of 1:1000 is prescribed by the WHO. The doctor-population ratio of the some of the countries are: Australia – 3.374:1000, Brazil – 1.852:1000, China -1.49:1000, France – 3.227:1000, Germany – 4.125:1000, Russia -3.306:1000, the USA – 2.554:1000, Afghanistan – 0.304:1000, Bangladesh – 0.389:1000, Pakistan – 0.806:1000.
