Indian future jeopardised.

The new budget which came as a respite in a major way for all the India had far more delighting things than were expected. Contemporarily it is not a covert fact that India is treading behind many other developing nations in terms of science and according to some new reports published, India notwithstanding carrying a population of 2.137 Billion invests much less in science than needed and ultimately all such thins ultimately amalgamate together to constrain the real talent of the nation from being unleashed.

But as the new budget was announced, the new Finance Minister of India, it seemed that Mr. Arun Jaitely, truly comprehended the gravity of this issues and therefore the Finance Minister also rolled out plans to erect five IITs and IIMs and four AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Vidarbha and Purvanchal regions.

Although without scepticism, it seems truly correct that the current laggard situation of our medical research would have goaded Mr. Jaitely up to announce the decision of opening four more AIIMS, but what’s needed more is to learn from our past failures first rather than going on committing the same mistakes in the future. Though Mr. Jaitley’s decision is heartily welcomed by me and probably by whole of the nation but the new government should also go one to learn from the previous fiascos due to which we continue to be beaten up behind.

AIIMS continue to be India’s most prestigious medical hospital and college which is attributed of conduction the best medical operations and researches all over the nation with the best faculty of doctors and specialists and the thing holds true till a large extent. AIIMS came up in the year 1956, with an initial endowment from New Zealand of a million US dollars. At that time AIIMS was just a tentative experiment and nobody was sure of its future but today resplendently, AIIMS treats 10,000 satisfied patients everyday thus becoming country’s lifeline hospital which operates the rich as well as the poor with the same precision and care. But there is also a truth behind the real image of India’s this marvellous institution.

Today AIIMS continue to be engulfed by various problems. Some of them are here.

The first problem continues to be of the whole nation. Lacks of doctors predominantly scares the whole of AIIMS. Today AIIMS is operating on just two-third of its required strength falling short of more than 200 doctors. According to some recent reports on the AIIMS College, around 53% of the graduates from AIIMS immigrate to various other developed nations in order to practise medicine. This problem arises due to, lack of incentives to doctors, lack of funds for research, lack of proper instruments in order to treat the patients and poor working conditions. All these problems sum up in order to be converted in the problem of brain drain which leads to loss of huge talent pool of the whole nation.

The other thing is that the previous governments completely overlooked the real need in order to reform this crucial institution which works nor only to save the life of people but also to save the hopes of hundreds of others associated with the patient. Paucity of beds at AIIMS continues to horrify thousands of patients from around the country who come to be treated at AIIMS. According to one estimate, more than 7000 people visit AIIMS OPDs everyday but even AIIMS reception counter is not able to hold such a large capacity of people, what about the beds in the hospital. Many patients continue to be there in open hoping for the attention of the life giver doctor.

One more thing that continues to jeopardise a bright future of AIIMS is the pay and working conditions at this institution. It takes more than five years in order to get an MBBS degree and even longer in order to become a specialist in a particular field. After spending around a decade of their life focussing on become a good doctor, the graduates also want to be reciprocated for their struggle and hard work that they had put in their studies but at the end they get a minimal salary of Rs. 51,600 a month. Today engineers earn more than lakhs per month which doctors who gave away so many years of their life in order to achieve the dream of their life get such a minimal amount which doesn’t even let them make both ends meet and at last these doctors are forced to settle in some other country. Imagine that your parents spent a large portion of their salary in order to arrange coaching for you to clear the medical test, then they spent a lion’s share of their salary in order to get you enrolled in a medical college, then they spent money for over a decade in order to let you complete your medical studies and at last when you earn such a less amount of money then, it just hurts everyone and therefore our doctors go on to move to countries like United States where medical profession is much more revered than in India.

According to some statistics in the year 2020, India would need an additional workforce of more than 4 lakh doctors and around fifty thousand new medical centres in order to successfully treat a large portion of the nation’s population, but according to the current circumstances it seems that it’s pretty difficult to reach upto the target, but we can surely help ourselves out of the problem if we pay heed to these problems plaguing our system for such a long period of time. If such problems like lack of incentive to doctors, poor working conditions etc. continue to hover over our medical workforce then a lot of people would be made to lose their life just due to our negligence and inability in tackling the problem and therefore a lot needs to be done.

JAI HIND JAI BHARAT

JAI MA BHARTI