Indians who have studied medicine in five English-speaking countries — UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — will now be eligible to practice in India. In a significant move, the Union health ministry has decided to recognise their degrees, making them eligible to practice in India without appearing for the “screening test”.
“The Union health ministry decided to exempt candidates coming from these countries to appear for the screening test and a notification to this effect will come out soon,” confirmed a senior official in the Medical Council of India (MCI).
Earlier, those Indians who have done their under-graduation in medicine from these countries had to appear for the screening test conducted by the National Board of Examination.
The test is mandatory for all the students doing UG courses and wanting to practice in India. Unless one passes this test, he/she does not get registered with MCI and, hence, cannot practice in India. However, both the health ministry and the MCI received many presentations from the candidates to abolish the exam for them, so that they can come back to India and practice here without any hassle. According to the new notification approved by the government, from now on, “the requirement to pass screening test for both UG and PG from five English speaking countries shall not be applicable”.
The post-graduate Indians or the specialists would earlier had to get a clearance from the equivalence committee. “However, there would not be any need now,” said a ministry official.
Calling it a positive move, NBE director Bipin Batra said, “It is an opening of new window of opportunity for those who are willing to come back to their home country to practice.”
Officials in the health ministry said that the new could help reducing the scarcity of doctors to much extent. “This could well be said a move of brain drain reversal as this could help us getting our doctors back”. In a reply in Rajya Sabha, health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad recently said that over 3,000 Indian doctors have migrated overseas in the last three years.
According to the World Health Statistics Report 2010, there are only 6.13 lakh physicians in the country, against a requirement for 13.3 lakh — a shortage of over 50 per cent. According to the report, India has less than one doctor for a thousand people (0.6) as compared to China (1.4 doctors per thousand). In absolute numbers, the US — whose population is a fourth of India’s — has more doctors than India.