The Karnataka government has decided to launch new medical colleges, despite the acute shortage of medical professionals.
Karnataka government is yet to devise a concrete plan to tackle acute shortage of medical professionals for the launch of 11 new medical colleges in 11 districts of the state. Government officials said that they have come up with temporary solutions to address the problem of lack of medical professional.
K.A. Uma, Chief Administrative Officer of Medical Education at the Directorate of Medical Education said, “Government has decided to launch 11 new medical colleges to provide opportunities to students in rural areas, and to those who cannot afford to go to metropolitan cities for higher studies. The biggest challenge in operating these new colleges will be the existing gap between the demand and supply of medical professors. As for now, to address the problem, we have come up with appointing professors on contractual basis along with an emphasis on online classes. For healthcare facilities, hospitals will use telemedicines and remote monitoring.”
However, she added that the government is yet to devise a concrete plan to come up with a permanent solution to tackle the problem of staff shortage, otherwise the whole idea of launching new hospitals would be a failure.
At present, around 4000 medical posts in medical colleges are vacant.
Uma added that the launch of new medical colleges will add 1100 seats to the existing number of seats in medical colleges. The state government will launch 11 new medical colleges in 11 districts on a public-private partnership model. These districts are Tumakuru, Davengere, Chitradurga, Bangalore, Kolar, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Bengaluru Rural, Vijayapura, Vijayanagaram and Ramnagaram. The Hindu reported that the state government has already completed the process of site allotment and various clearances. The operation of new colleges will get started in districts of Davengere and Bengaluru Rural in 2024-2025 academic session.
Dr. M Kiran Kumar, MS(Ortho),Joint director, Medical at the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare said that the plan to launch new hospitals was there for long time but due to financial constraints, the project was stalled since 2013. He said, “Setting up a medical college is very expensive. Sometimes it goes up to Rs 600 crore.” As of now, land clearances have been given for two districts, Bengaluru Rural and Davengere. He added that land acquisition is a big challenge, and it will take time to acquire land for other nine colleges. The operations might start in next three years.
He further said that the Government decided to go for PPP model because it will bring advanced technologies and operating strategies to the colleges. This project will be developed on ‘Build-Operate and Own’ model. In which the ownership will remain in the hands of the government, however it will be run by private firms.
Currently, in Karnataka there are a total of 57 medical colleges, of which 23 are government medical colleges.
Ananth Ram, an expert on public health said that before coming up with new colleges, the government should focus on improving the infrastructure of existing medical colleges. He said, “The government should focus on solving the problem of lack of medical professionals and then they should launch more colleges. Otherwise, it will develop into a failed venture.”
