How Many doctors do we need?

Abstract

Health manpower planning is an essential activity for any country for achievement of good health. In India there is no consensus about how many doctors we need for our population. Production of Medical graduate is a time consuming and expensive affair. Number of Medical colleges at time of independence was only 19 and now the number has grown to more than 700 at 2023.1More than 300 are run by private management. India is producing more than 70000 medical graduates in a year. And number is increasing. But when we are considering the manpower requirement, we should consider the Practitioners of Indian system of medicine also. In our country Medical Institution and doctors are concentrated in Urban areas. In rural areas where large number of Indian are residing are mostly depended on Practitioner with less than adequate qualification. In rural areas only small number of medical graduates are employed by Government in government institutions. Very few private Practitioners or private institutions are involved for care of people in rural areas.