Ashwini Kumar Choubey, minister of state for health and family welfare, says the controversial National Medical Commission Bill will allow medical colleges to expand and produce more doctors, and tells The New Sunday Express that the government is committed to successfully implementing the National Health Protection Scheme. Excerpts from the interview:
The government has been pushing the National Medical Commission Bill, and doctors say the body is being brought in to ensure greater government control in medical education. Many also say that since MPs own some private medical colleges, they want the Commission and new rules that will allow them to get hefty fees for greater number of seats. What do you say to that?
We want to make medical education cheaper, accessible to all, and transparent. The rules and processes of the Medical Council of India are so tough that medical colleges have not expanded the way they should have. There is a shortage of doctors, and unless we are lenient in allowing expansion (of colleges) how is that possible? Plus, there have been allegations of malpractices by MCI members in granting permissions to colleges. We want to change all that. As for medical education getting expensive, this government will not let that happen. We want good doctors in the country and at a faster rate—this Bill is to fill those gaps.
The government has been talking about the National Health Protection Scheme and upgrading of sub-centres into wellness centres. Where is the money and manpower to implement these schemes?
There will be no shortage of funds. This financial year, we have allocated Rs 2,000 crore for NHPS and Rs 1,200 crore for wellness centres. The 1 per cent health cess is expected to generate Rs 10,000 crore, which will be used for these two programmes. NHPS or Modicare will cover about 40 per cent of the people of the country, and it’s our commitment to successfully implement this programme. As for shortage of manpower, the NMC Bill will help as it produces more doctors in the coming years. In the meantime, we will rely on AYUSH doctors to run the wellness centres. Sub-centres across the country should get upgraded to wellness centres in five years.
Last year, you said that doctors in AIIMS Delhi should not see patients from states where newer AIIMS have opened. But doctors in the new institutions feel that they are little better than district hospitals.
My statement was misinterpreted. What I meant was that AIIMS Delhi is a tertiary super-speciality hospital and research centre and it should be treated like that. We have six other functional AIIMS now and several good public sector hospitals. People who need quality care at minimal rates should approach these centres. Twenty more AIIMS centres have been sanctioned, and medical colleges run by state governments are being aided to turn into super-speciality centres. The new AIIMS centres have not grown fast enough, mainly due to lack of faculty, but we are addressing that issue.
Corporate hospitals have faced flak due to complaints of overcharging. Many feel that the government is not doing enough to rein in private-sector players who exploit patients and earn huge profits.
That’s a genuine concern and we have been receiving complaints. The Centre has been asking states to adopt the Clinical Establishment Act, 2010, which seeks to regulate private-sector health care providers, but health is a state subject and we can only frame guidelines. Some states have implemented it with their own variations and some are in the process of doing so. We do not want private healthcare to be driven purely by commercial interests. Many big hospitals have come up and they want to make money, but the government cannot let them profiteer.
Bihar has seen several communal incidents in the recent past and your son (Arijit Shashwat) was named in a riot case in Bhagalpur. Political pundits say that the BJP has extended its Hindutva laboratory to Bihar from UP?
Hindutva is our way of life. It’s synonymous with Indian-ness and nationalism. We do not want to discriminate on the basis of religion, but we do not want to appease a particular community on that basis either. That is the kind of vote-bank politics that Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and several other parties have been doing and we do not agree with that. In Bhagalpur, my son had simply led a procession to celebrate the Hindu new year, and the trouble happened in another part of the city. Goons from a particular community had teased some Hindu women.
Some politically motivated cops lodged an FIR against my son, saying that he had instigated a riot. That was totally false. We belong to a family that sheltered people from the Muslim community during the 1942 riots and we have always lived symbiotically with people from that religion. We can never do anything against them. Every citizen of the country should adopt a certain culture, and Hindutva is our culture.
Nitish Kumar has been going back and forth on his alliance with the BJP and is seen as an unpredictable ally now. Ties between the BJP and JD (U) are also said to be strained. Where do you see the partnership going ahead of the 2019 general polls?
Prior to the 2014 polls, Nitish ji had doubts about Narendra Modi, but when he saw his work, his mind changed. He dissociated himself from corruption-tainted RJD and came back to us. Our partnership is stable in Bihar, and in 2019 we will contest the polls together.