In one place governments is citing shortage of doctors and thus granting permission to new private medical colleges whereas on the other hand six states-Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Goa have more doctors than the WHO norm of one for 1,000 people. Yet doctors crunch is seen in the rural public health system. In Tamil Nadu the density of doctors per 1000 people is as high as 4 which is almost same as that in countries like Sweden and Norway where it is 4.3 and 4.2 respectively. Followed by Delhi, where the density is similar to UK, US and Canada which is 3 doctors per 1000 people.
Kerala and Karnataka account for 1.5 doctors whereas Punjab and Goa account for 1.3 doctors per 1000 people. This clearly shows that these 6 states are clearly exceeding the WHO guideline of 1:1000 ratio. In spite of this exceeding ratio we still see shortage of doctors in the rural areas.…
