*Bangalore, Jan 20* : Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad today said the Centre has taken various steps to address human resource shortage in the health sector, including increasing the teacher-student ratio and relaxing the retirement age of teaching medical faculty to 70 years from the coming academic year.
Speaking at the 15th convocation of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) here, he said, the Ministry through amendments of regulations and relaxation of norms in Medical Council Rules and commencement of new schemes, hopes to address this human resource shortage. He said to meet the shortage of specialists and faculty, the teacher-student ratio has been increased from 1:1 to 1:2. For the academic year 2010-11, nearly 4,000 additional seats in different postgraduate courses in government medical colleges across the country have already been approved. With these initiatives, it is expected that in the next two years an additional 10,000 PG seats would be created. Regulations have been amended to allow medical faculty to be employed up to the age of 70 years, he said, adding this would come into effect from this academic year and state governments would have to implement it. Other measures taken by the Centre include allowing corporate sector to set up medical colleges and raising the ceiling for MBBS admissions from existing 50-100-150 seats to 200-250 seats. To overcome shortage of faculty, the Centre has permitted those with DNB qualifications to teach. A Centrally-sponsored scheme for strengthening and upgrading of state governments' medical colleges with a total Central funding of Rs 1,350 crore has also been approved. Talking about mental health, he said the outlay for the National Mental Health Programme has been increased from Rs 140 crore in the last plan to Rs 1,000 crore in the present plan period, Mr Azad said. Speaking on the occasion, Karnataka Minister for Medical Education S A Ramdas said the state had put up a proposal to the Centre for upgrading the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases to the national level. The state government had also sought the help of NIMHANS in setting up a multi-speciality hospital for geriatric care and for mentoring the Dharwad Institute of Mental Health to build up to the level of a centre of excellence. http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-129064.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/MhaNewsViewsIndia?hl=en ------------- Affiliated Groups : MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY INDIA [email protected] Discussions on mental health law / policy / plan monitoring / human rights etc [email protected] India-specific news and views related to mental health [email protected] Information and support to carers of people with mental health issues [email protected] Mutual support and sharing of experiential knowledge, skills and social learning amongst peers
