Available medical seats highly inadequate for students: Prez

New Delhi: Expressing a serious concern over the "highly inadequate" number of medical education seats in the country, President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday said various regulatory impediments that had prevented the growth would have to be overcome.

While addressing the 45th convocation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Kovind said that in the absence of the stipulated number of doctors, the workload on the existing ones was "very high" and that this situation needed to be addressed "very urgently".

"I would say unrealistically high," the President said, referring to the pressure on a doctor in the country.

"I recognise that I am placing a big responsibility on the capable shoulders of our doctors. I acknowledge that our doctors need help. They need help in the form of more colleagues and this is where we need a new regulatory system to enhance the availability of doctors and medical professionals in our society," the president added.

He pointed out the medical colleges, run by the government or private entities, had about 67,000 undergraduate seats and 31,000 post-graduate seats currently and said, "In a country of 1.3 billion people, this is highly inadequate."

The country had to overcome the "regulatory bottlenecks" and "interest groups" that had prevented the growth of a quality medical education, Kovind added.

"This gives us far fewer medical graduates and post- graduates every year than our people need. It also leads to aspiring medical students seeking admission in colleges in other countries, simply because they have limited options at home," he said and added that such a situation was "simply not acceptable".

"We need to address this situation very urgently. We need to create more opportunities for those young people who want to make medicine their calling," the president said.

He lauded the students and faculty of the premier medical institute, saying that the AIIMS had become "a byword for quality, commitment and a rich experience".

"The faculty and doctors, as well as, of course, the students, are the pride of our medical fraternity and our nation."