Incentivise healthcare manpower to stay in rural areas, says CMC Vellore director

Asserting on the need to strengthen primary and secondary care, especially in rural areas, Vikram Mathews, director of Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, on Wednesday said quality healthcare services cannot be delivered with just buildings and equipment. 

“We need to create an excellent working atmosphere, nurture talent, and ensure that there are adequate facilities such as housing and education available for the families of healthcare professionals posted in rural areas,” he said.

Stay in rural areas

Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a programme organised to announce the Azim Premji Foundation’s partnership with CMC Vellore, he said the availability of trained professionals in rural areas is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

“Human resources are a major problem. Often the problem is not because manpower is not available. The challenge is to ensure they stay in rural areas. We need to incentivise manpower and address the basic challenges that families of healthcare professionals face in rural areas. We need to provide them housing, education and other basic infrastructure for their children,” he said.

“Training to work in a secondary hospital is very different from training to work in a tertiary and quaternary care hospitals. In a secondary hospital, doctors are more like general physicians. They can handle most problems. That is what a majority of the population needs. However, if a doctor with a certain training is posted in a hospital that has no facilities he is very frustrated and it is difficult for him/her to continue working there. All these challenges should be addressed,” Dr. Mathews said.

Trauma care

Emphasising on the need for the availability of trauma care, especially on highways, the doctor said availability of a network of trauma care facilities on highways could save the lives of thousands of people injured in road accidents.

“Our Ranipet campus is located on the national highway between Chennai and Bengaluru and we are developing a fully-equipped trauma care service here. This Level-1 Trauma Care Centre includes state-of-the-art ICUs, operation theatres, radiology suite, and 112 trauma beds. We need more such well-equipped facilities along the highways,” Dr. Mathews said.

He said telemedicine is suitable only for follow-up cases and prescribing repeat medications. “You need to have reasonably well-trained persons on both sides. There are limitations to making a diagnosis from scratch through telemedicine.   Instead it is better to have a good referral system,” the doctor added.