Karnataka to revive three-year course in medicine

With a view to providing medical care to people living in rural areas of the State, the Government of Karnataka is planning to offer a three-year diploma course in medicine on the lines of the Licensed Medical Practitioner (LMP) course that was scrapped decades ago.

Speaking after inaugurating a healthcare programme for school children in Bangalore on Monday, Karnataka’s Medical Education Minister Ramachandra Gowda said the proposal to introduce the course would be placed before the Cabinet soon.

Students, who have passed their Class 10, can enroll themselves for the three-year medical diploma course, which will be on the lines of the LMP.

Gowda said healthcare in rural areas was suffering due to non-availability of medical professionals in sufficient numbers. With doctors reluctant to work in rural areas, healthcare has become concentrated in urban areas, he said.

“There is a strong pro-urban bias in access to medical care”, he said and pointed out that 76 per cent of medical professionals serve the 20 per cent of the population living in urban areas. The remaining 24 per cent doctors take care of the 80 per cent of people in rural areas, he said.

Out of the estimated 45,000 doctors in Karnataka, as many as 38,000 are practicing in the private sectors and barely 7,000 doctors are working in Government hospitals and primary health centers, he said.

The products of the diploma course in medicine will be deployed in rural areas to attend to the healthcare requirements of the people living there, he said.