The Assam government has asked the Medical Council of India (MCI) to amend its rule and permit medical colleges in the Northeastern region to open an evening shift in order to double the MBBS output of the state. State Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma said Wednesday that he has already sent a proposal to the MCI to relax this rule in view of huge shortage of doctors. The problem would be more acute with the state planning 126 model hospitals in the next few years,he said. Assam has a shortage of 7,000 doctors,and it is simply not possible to cope up with the situation with a combined 520 seats in the four medical colleges of the state, Sharma said. The Assam government only recently announced a Rs 1,000-crore plan to set up 126 model hospitals,one each in every Assembly segment. Though we are going to set up these 126 new model hospitals soon,the ground reality is that it will be difficult to find out 14 doctors and 20 paramedics for each of them at one go with the current shortage of doctors, he said.
