Summary:
AHMEDABAD: While Gujarat reels from a severe scarcity of doctors and limited seats in medical courses , which compromises the healthcare delivery system, the CAG exposed the state government’s apathy to remedying the issue.A bulk central fund of Rs 750 crore, meant to create five new medical colleges in Gujarat, lapsed because the government failed to submit proposals. The state has not funded a single medical research study since 2014.While the CAG team visited a few civil hospitals in Gujarat, at Jamnagar and Surat, to evaluate the facilities offered, it found that the casualty departments at these hospitals were functioning without an ICU. The report said that MCI norms for teaching and clinical postings and exposure of students to clinical units and training centres were not adhered to at test-checked medical colleges.A lot had been promised by the state government for promotion of medical research in the state, but the Gujarat government has not framed guidelines for medical research, the CAG pointed out. These colleges could have added to the existing 3,900 medical seats in the state and could have made medical education more accessible to poor students as well.In what is an open secret in the medical education world, the CAG exposed for the first time instances of en masse transfers of teachers from one government medical college to another, just ahead of inspections by the Medical Council of India (MCI), to enable colleges to retain their licences..