Sunday, March 21, 2010

• Government must start medical colleges
• Health and education should be priority, says Dr. Patel

Bellary: Surgeon Arvind Patel expressed concern at the commercialisation of medical education and underlined the need for the Government to start medical and nursing colleges.

He was delivering a lecture on “Commercialisation of medical education”, organised by the Medical Service Centre (MSC), Karnataka, here on Friday. The seminar is a prelude to its second State-level conference to be held at Bellary on March 27 and 28. Dr. Patel said stress on profit has deprived meritorious students from poor and middle class families of a chance to join the course. It was unfortunate that the Government's policy encouraged this, he said. Health and education should be priority on the Government's agenda, Dr. Patel said.

If the State Government ran medical and nursing institutes, health issues in rural areas, including the common complaint that doctors and nurses were not willing to serve in these areas, could be resolved, Dr. Patel added.

President of the MSC district unit Pramod criticised the fall in values in the medical and nursing sectors and called upon all to restore these.
On Saturday, the MSC will be organising a seminar for medical students on “Challenges before doctors, students and health personnel in the present health scenario” at the Micro-biology hall of VIMS here at 11.30 am.

Renowned paediatrician Yoganand Reddy and secretary of the State MSC K.S. Gangadhar will deliver lectures.