VISAKHAPATNAM: Thousands of rural medical practitioners (RMPs), who had been asked to shut down their clinics following the second wave of Covid-19, have requested Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to resume the programme for their training, which was initiated by his late father in 2008.
The government had ordered that clinics of these RMPs be shut down, as they had become a source point for spread of Coronavirus, particularly in rural areas.
With no other source of income, Federation of Experienced Medical Practitioners Welfare Association recalled that former chief minister Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy had mooted the idea of training RMPs, so that their services could be utilised in rural and agency areas. Accordingly, GO No. 429 was issued in 2008.
Had that training been completed as per the idea of Dr. Reddy, who was an allopathic doctor, around 1.2 lakh RMPs would have been benefited in combined Andhra Pradesh.
“The late CM wanted to issue certificates recognising us as ‘community paramedics’ post the training in identifying and treating 303 basic diseases. Unfortunately, the chief minister died and our training programme was wound up abruptly,” federation’s information secretary G. Chiranjeevi Rao, who used to practise medicine in Vizianagaram town, told Deccan Chronicle.
He asserted that RMPs have been the backbone of health system in rural and agency areas of AP. During the current Coronavirus pandemic too, they have acted as a bridge between patients and hospitals in these areas.
Chiranjeevi Rao said a decade after their training was abandoned, their federation approached then Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who immediately issued G.O. No 465, providing recognition to rural medical practitioners. The then health minister even addressed meeting of RMPs organised in the University of Health Sciences in 2017. At the meeting, the minister also announced that an action plan will be chalked out to train RMPs and utilise their services in a big way for improving the health system in rural areas.
“That was the last time anybody spoke of training RMPs in AP. We approached Jagan Mohan Reddy during his pada yatra and our association members also called on him after he took over as Chief Minister in 2019. But nothing has come out so far,” Chiranjeevi Rao lamented on Monday speaking to DC.
Appreciating the services of RMPs, Joint Action Committee of Tribal Organisations state convener Rama Rao Dora said services of rural medical practitioners must be deployed particularly in remote places, though under supervision of the government.
However, he said if vacant posts in 36 PHCs and 120 sub-centres in agency areas are filled with doctors and other staff, there would be no need for RMPs.
