MCI seeks registered doctors’ list from states

nNEWDELHI : The Medical Council of India, country’s apex medical education regulator, has written to its state councils asking them to prepare a list of all doctors registered with them -- part of an exercise aimed at taking stock of the number of doctors that be mustered to treat Covid-19 patients should the number of infections increase sharply.

In a latter sent out last week, the board of governors of Medical Council of India (BOG-MCI) asked for an updated list of registered medical practitioners and their contact details.

“The MCI has been entrusted for ensuring availability of registered medical practitioners (registered under the Indian Medical Council Act 1956/State Medical Council Acts) for tackling Covid-19 pandemic. It is requested to share the updated list of registered medical practitioners available in your medical council…” said the letter, a copy of which has been reviewed by HT.

Apart from the names and registration numbers, the information asked for also requires mobile number, email, and contact address.

State councils have already started work on compiling the data. “We are working on compiling the list. Once a medical practitioner registers (with us) the name stays at least for years years in the state register ; some of them are also PG students coming from other states who return to their respective state after their education is over. We need to weed out those names from the list, and with skeletal staff at our disposal right now it might take a little longer,” said Dr Girish Tyagi, member, Delhi Medical Council.

India has 1.1 million registered allopathic doctors as of December 2019. “Assuming 80% availability, it is estimated that around 9.26 lakh doctors may be actually available for active service,” said minister of state for health Ashwini Kumar Choubey in the Lok Sabha last year.

For a population of 1.36 billion, this makes the doctor-population ratio 1:1,457, which is lower than the WHO recommended norm of 1:1,000.

For people living in rural areas that are completely dependent on government hospitals and clinics, the ratio is actually far worse, 1:10,926, according to the National Health Profile 2019 data.