The Hindu : Opinion / Letters to the Editor : Rural service

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Saturday, Sep 22, 2007
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Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Rural service

This refers to the Union Health Ministry’s decision to make a year’s rural service compulsory for medical students. Instead, the government should investigate the reasons that prevent doctors from serving in villages. They are not paid even a fraction of what the MNCs pay other professionals. The working conditions are pathetic. There are no good schools for doctors to educate their children. It is the government’s duty to attract doctors by offering them incentives to work in villages.

Manu Manamel,

Kochi

If students go to villages and express genuine interest in the welfare of the people, they will find that the villagers are extremely receptive to any idea to improve their health. Doctors can motivate the people to contribute towards improving the infrastructure and procuring equipment. There are good Samaritans in our countryside who donate for a cause.

D. Rama Mohan Rao,

Hyderabad

The Ministry’s proposal is unlikely to help in improving health care in the rural areas. But it will surely add to the existing burden of the medicos.

What we need are better facilities, qualified and experienced specialists, improvement of the existing rural medical infrastructure and better and permanent job opportunities for doctors in the government sector with a good pay.

B. Sneha Chitra,

Chennai

My father was a civil surgeon who worked in the villages of Tamil Nadu from 1960-1987. My siblings and I were educated in the villages where electricity was available only in select homes. Only we know how much of quality education we lost during our school days.

The villages where my father served have changed for the better. But given the facilities in the PHCs, a student is unlikely to do a good job. It is not certainly an ideal place for those at the beginning of their careers.

L. Sankar,

Chennai

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