About Concept Doctors

Healthcare is one of the fastest growing sectors both in India and abroad. The panorama of Indian healthcare is changing rapidly and is being hailed as a sunrise industry of the country. There are opportunities galore, but the challenges are also equally prevalent. Even while the sector is being propelled towards growth and progress as a result of modern medical technology, increasing FDIs, privatisation, better healthcare delivery models etc, Indian healthcare continues to be plagued by issues such as skewed distribution of healthcare facilities, insufficient healthcare spend, rising medical costs, ineffective healthcare delivery, lack of skilled and sufficient medical personnel, high attrition rate and others.
One thing that comes across very clearly is that many of the healthcare challenges in India are directly or indirectly linked to human resource management of the sector. The fast-expanding domestic healthcare industry is the third largest employer, but is severely short of manpower. India ranks 67th among 133 developing countries in Doctor to Patient ratio.

As per ministry of health, there is a shortage of approximately half a million doctors, a million nurses and the deficit need to be filled in the next five years. Such shortage will lead to exponential salary hike demands, and further lead to high patient care costs.

At present, the number of registered allopathic doctors in the country is 5.5 lakhs resulting in a doctor/patient ratio being 0.6/1000. In comparison, China has 1.4 doctors per 1000. While India has an unmet demand of 6lakhs doctors, UK has 40,000 Indian doctors and USA has 50,000 Indian doctors (1 for every 20 practicing doctors).

The total number of beds available in 11,614 government hospitals is 5,40,330 There are 300 medical colleges admitting 34,595 students producing 30,558 graduates annually. The number of PG seats available are 12,346.

The Andhra Pradesh government has agreed to cover about 45lakhs employees including retired personnel along with their dependents into the health insurance scheme. All these employees along with their dependents may need primary, secondary or tertiary care from Womb to Tomb. However, existing hospitals in both public and private sectors will not suffice to cater to their needs.

While the medical Council of India has relaxed the age limit of teaching medical professionals from 65 to 70 years, there are a lot of doctors (allopathic graduates) just past 60 years and not rendering their services. This could be due to a multitude of reasons such as –

  1. Lack of attractive salaries
  2. Government not retaining them even when they are healthy
  3. Not in a position to start practice
  4. Not ready to venture into rural areas for various reasons
  5. Concerns about education of children
  6. Lack of facilities in the rural areas
  7. Their own secondary and tertiary medical needs
  8. Competition from quacks

Concept hospitals basically aim at attracting this group of medical graduates with rich experience gained through their services mostly residing in cities.

Their services can be utilized in primary care hospitals in both urban and rural areas. Since they are retired and would like to enjoy the fruits of ageing without accompanying stress, they can be put on shorter duties such as 5hrs per day/night.

Government may utilize their services for rural PHC’s on a temporary basis or in the various health programs and projects. They can be used in –

  • Mobile medical units by NGO’s/Govt
  • Clinical trials by medical companies
  • ESI hospital managements
  • Disaster health management
  • Medical colleges
  • Rajeev Arogya Sree
  • Ambulance services
  • Tele-medicine centre
  • Satellite clinics of corporate hospitals
  • Home visits
  • Counselling
  • Old age homes
  • Inhouse doctor for Gated communities and multiplex complexes
Concept doctors are mature, sympathetic, knowledgeable and accurate. The corporate hospitals may utilise their services to fill in gaps when the duty doctors are not available.
We imitate the west for best in healthcare but not in terms of utilization of human resources. The trend of concept doctors can be used by future administrators to bridge the gaps in the workforce.

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