UP quack numbers surge threefold in 12 years despite ban

The number of unqualified medical practitioners in Uttar Pradesh rose from about 32,000 to more than double between 2006-15 despite a high court order banning such people from providing healthcare to patients, state health department data shows.

The number of unqualified and unregistered medical practitioners stood at 75,656 in 2015, when the department stopped maintaining data of unlicensed selfstyled doctors.

At present an estimated 80,000 unqualified people are illegal running clinics across Uttar Pradesh, said a health department officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The threat posed by quacks have come under the spotlight after at least 58 people were found to be HIV positive within two years in Unnao district.

Police are probing a self-styled doctor, Rajendra Yadav, with no training in medicine who allegedly used a contaminated single syringe to treat all his patients.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) say the situation is very much the same across India.

Only 42.7% of self-styled allopathic doctors had a medical qualification, with 57.3% practicing without a medical training, said the WHO’s 2016 report on The Health Workforce in India, which used data from the 2011 Census of India.

The Allahabad high court in an order on May 16, 2012, had directed the state chief secretary, as well as the principal secretary, health and family welfare, to take action against quacks.

Earlier in 2010, the Supreme Court directed the state government to launch a drive against unqualified and unregistered medical practitioners.

“Chief medical officers (CMOs) have been directed to identify unqualified and unregistered medical practitioners in the respective districts and register cases against them,” said Dr Padmakar Singh, the state’s director general, medical health.

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