A first: MBBS students roped in to serve in district hospitals

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, June 30

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, MBBS students have been roped in to serve at selected public hospitals in the district, the government confirmed.

Took many initiatives to improve facilities

Our endeavour is to provide the best and affordable healthcare services to the public. Following the directions of Health Minister Balbir Singh, we have taken several first-of-its-kind initiatives to further improve the medical facilities and make government health centres more patient-friendly.

Dr Hitinder Kaur Sohal, Civil Surgeon

For this purpose, a District Residency Programme (DRP) has been launched in the state’s biggest and largest district, in terms of area and population, officials have said.

The special initiative has been designed to overcome the shortage of doctors and further improve the medical services at the government health centres.

Under the DRP, the district Health Department has roped in the first batch of 38 students from Dayanand Medical College (DMC) and Christian Medical College (CMC) and posted them at five different district and sub-divisional hospitals and community health centres (CHCs) on rotational basis.

Civil Surgeon Hitinder Kaur Sohal told The Tribune here on Friday that the first batch started serving from May under the DRP initiative. She disclosed that these students have been posted at a district hospital here, sub-divisional hospitals at Khanna, Samrala, Raikot, and Jagraon, and the CHCs, wherever there was a requirement of more doctors, on a rotational basis.

The Civil Surgeon said the young resident doctors were serving at outpatient, inpatient, casualty, laboratories, and other allied departments as per need and availability.

“These medical students are also engaged in implementation of national and state public health programmes,” she revealed, while claiming that the posting of DRP residents in various departments has helped the district Health Department improve patient satisfaction score as well.

Citing the progress report, the Civil Surgeon divulged that the laboratory reporting time (FNAC and PAP smear) has been decreased from seven to three days, patient waiting time in all the OPDs, especially the most-crowded Medicine OPD, has also come down drastically, procedures like lumbar puncture and ascitic fluid tap have increased, bone marrow aspiration was done for the first time at the district hospital here recently, and the admission, indoor care and discharge services have also improved significantly with the help of DRP residents.

“Our endeavour is to provide the best and affordable healthcare services to the public. Following the directions of Health Minister Dr Balbir Singh, we have taken several first-of-its-kind initiatives to further improve the medical facilities and make government health centres more patient-friendly.” Dr Sohal said.

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