The
Report of the National Initiative for Allied Health Sciences (NIAHS) “From
Paramedics to Allied Health Professionals: Landscaping the Journey and Way
Forward” was released in New Delhi today. Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister
of Health & Family Welfare released the Report in the morning.
Later
a discussion-cum-dissemination meeting was held at Lakshmipat Singhania
Auditorium, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The first session of the
meeting was addressed by Shri Keshav
Desiraju, Special Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Shri
Jagdish Prasad, Director General of Health Services, Professor Dr.
ManikaChaudhury, Department of Optometry and Professor K. Srinath Reddy,
President, Public Health Foundation of India. Presentation on highlights of
NIAHS journey was made by Dr. Subhash Salunke, Senior Adviser, Public Health
Foundation of India. The second session was addressed by Dr. Vinod Paul,
Professor & Head of the Department of Pediatrics, AIIMS, Ms Kavita Narayan,
NIAHS Study Coordinator and Dr. Kanav Kahol, Team Leader, Affordable Health
Technologies, Public Health Foundation of India.
Highlights of the report are as follows:
1. Allied Health Professionals are defined and interpreted
differently within and among countries. Largely known as ‘paramedic’ in India,
the term refers to a professional providing emergency care and ambulance
services in the rest of the world. Hence, it is essential to address the issue
of perception urgently and thus it is imperative to standardize a comprehensive
definition of AHP, along with a defined career pathway, salary structure and
cadre formation to ensure their growth prospects.
2. A considerable regulatory gap in the allied health space is
attributed to the lack of a comprehensive regulatory framework and absence of
centres for excellence or apex bodies for professional development and training
of AHPs. A number of councils such as the Medical Council of India (MCI),
Dental Council of India (DCI) to name a few, have already been established by
Government of India for regulating the
standards of education and training, as well as the registration of
practitioners in respective fields. The aim is to prevent unqualified people
from practicing and also for maintain the standards of these professions.
However, there is no central regulatory mechanism for AHPs. As threes councils
are established by an Act, it is recommended to set up a National Board for
Allied Health Sciences as an interim measure to undertake the work of capacity
augmentation and re-organization for this group of the healthcare workforce.
3. Present project has studied over 1000 institutes and
carried out literature review which reveals a plethora of institutions across
the country all offering a wide variety of courses varying in quality and
output on allied subjects. The lack of planned courses and institutions
non-uniform nomenclature for the existing courses, diverse standards of
practice and lack of qualified faculty pose a threat to the quality of
education and skills of the AHP, thus there is a need to standardize the course
duration, curricula, training methodologies and other such components
pertaining to the education and training of allied health professionals.
4. A supply-demand analysis undertaken using an
access-efficiency factor for urban and rural population based on best practices
of HRH norms reveal a total national shortage of approx. 64 lakh AHPs with
highest gaps in the states of UP, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar and AP. The
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare aims to address the shortage by
establishing one national and eight regional institutes of allied health
science across the country, which will serve as the centres of excellence based
on the lines of AIIMS in medical education.
5. Solutions for augmenting the capacity should also focus on
partnership, affiliate and other network models. It is recommended to utilize
the current centres of excellence across the various groups of allied health
sciences. The National and Regional institutes may form a network of
affiliation with these centres of excellences to standardize the education
system across the country. Public private partnership will pay a crucial role
in augmenting the workforce capacity.
6. For effective management of the institutes, it is
recommended that the national and regional institutes of allied health science
may be established as autonomous bodies fully funded by GoI, lands to be
provided by the state government and they should be encouraged to find ways to
sustainable operational cost;
7. The study indicated that Affiliation to a hospital/medical
college is critical to develop practical skills and competencies in these
students;
8. New methods of teaching and training should be introduced
in the public sector to keep up with changing technologies and new age
educational methods such as e-learning, web tools, SIM models and others.
9. In the Indian public health care system, there are limited
options for employment, which is not based on a rational approach. Analysis
also reveals that, given the fast-paced growth in the healthcare sector, there
is a potential for developing cadres of several new and emerging fields of
AHPs. Augmenting the capacity of public sector through provision of employment
opportunities by sanctioning new posts for the allied health cadre in the
healthcare delivery system will address the gap.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें