Penalise consultants for not teaching PG students: VK Paul to private hospitals

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V K Paul, a member of the Niti Aayog and one of the most powerful health administrators in the current dispensation, came down heavily on private hospital management for failing to aid the government’s bid to raise postgraduate and equivalent seats in medicine.

At a recent industry event, the paediatrician and physician also rebuked private players in the healthcare industry for not availing of various government schemes and not coming up with a plan to offer affordable health insurance plan for the “missing middle”—the chunk of the population currently not covered either by the government private insurance.

Speaking at the Heal 2022 event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on October 11, Dr Paul expressed disappointment that private hospitals in India which have nearly 6 lakh beds, compared to 7-8 lakh hospital beds in the public sector, offer just about 10,000 Diplomate of National Board (DNB) seats, which are considered equivalent to postgraduate degrees in medicine (MS and MD).

“Why can’t private hospitals, too, offer about 50,000 PG seats?” asked Paul, referring to PG medicine seats by medical colleges offered both by the government- and private-run institutions.

He insisted that every bed in a tertiary care hospital in India offers a teaching opportunity and it needs to be availed of to solve the crisis of specialist doctors in the country.

“Why would your consultants not teach? You punish them for many things… (For) not meeting targets. Why not punish them for this? Why should they not do it?” asked Paul. “Why don’t you celebrate those who do teaching?”

As of now, there are 12,246 DNB seats offered by tertiary care hospitals while for the 2022-23 academic session, there were MS/MD (Master of Surgery/ Doctor of Medicine) seats across medical colleges.

The number of MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery) seats in India, on the other hand, has now reached 91,927. Given the huge gap between undergraduate and postgraduate-level seats in medicine, the government has been pushing the private sector to raise the number of DNB seats.

Also read: Government plans to double PG medical seats in next five years

‘Need support’

Gautam Khanna, chair, FICCI Health Services Committee, told Moneycontrol that while private hospitals would take up the matter on an urgent basis, some policy changes are also needed from the government to give the initiative a push.

Harsh Mahajan, another senior member of the committee, pointed out that DNB seats in private hospitals have risen significantly over the last few years.

Only recently, the Association of National Board Accredited Institutions (ANBAI), a network of hospitals offering DNB degrees, had written to Dr Paul saying the government should subsidise the stipend that hospitals need to pay DNB residents.

As per the hospitals’ body, they spend Rs 3-5 lakh per year on training every DNB resident and recover about Rs 1.25 lakh through annual fees.

“In addition, hospitals are also required to pay a hefty stipend to every DNB resident and in states like Delhi, the students are paid Rs 80,000-90,000 per month,” ANBAI said.

Their representatives argue that hospitals are already pressed due to the expenditure incurred on training residents and the growing salary burden paid to consultants.