Aimed at fixing shortage of doctors in rural areas, the fate of bachelor of rural health care course (BRHCC) will be decided on Monday.
The Medical Council of India (MCI) will present the “new curriculum” for the course to the Union health ministry. The course has been pending the approval of regulatory body for over two years now.
According to sources, the committee of experts that had been working on the curriculum of the proposed curriculum of the course have recommended to change the name of the course to B.Sc community health. Since it will no more be a doctorate course, the experts have recommended creation of a new professional group — a university that will notify the course.
Sources in the regulatory body revealed that it has been suggested that new cadre will only provide “simple ambulatory care”, which means that they will be trained to provide only OPD care and no “in-patient” health care.
“Sick patients will be referred to the doctors and they will only handle cases that need simple ambulatory care,” sources said, adding that these professionals will be posted only at the sub centre and not in primary health centres (PHCs) or hospitals.
The committee has also suggested that states should have major say in adopting the course. “While the legal cover, quality assurance, regulations can be done by the centre, state government should have a major say as health is a state subject. A similar model is adopted in Assam and other states can also pass such a law,” sources added.
The newly-proposed cadre is expected to be dealing in public health, vaccination, therapeutic medicine etc. and will be linked with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
The duration of the course remains to be same as decided earlier, which was 3.5 years and their career progression will remain on the public health side.