Union Health Minister J P Nadda said that the centre has planned for a rapid expansion of medical education and 22 new AIIMS are coming up across the country.
Nadda, addressing the first convocation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar, said as medical education forms the apex of the healthcare pyramid, it is the quality of graduating doctors and specialists that will determine the quality of services in the country for generations to come.
He also said various initiatives such as increasing the retirement age of doctors to 65 years, setting up more medical and nursing schools, multi-skilling of doctors to overcome the shortage of specialists, have been taken by the Centre to improve medical education.
The post-graduate seats have increased by over 8,500 and under-graduate seats by over 16,000 since 2014-15, Nadda said.
He added, "We are expanding the network of our medical colleges in a big way by upgrading 58 district hospitals to medical colleges.
"Twenty-four new medical colleges have been announced in this year's budget. Twenty state cancer institutes and 50 tertiary cancer care centres are also being set up,"
He also mentioned about the newly launched Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Abhiyan' programme that would provide universal healthcare to over 50 crore people from the vulnerable sections.
Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and Nadda laid the foundation stones for two buildings at the AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, campus.
(Featured image: aajtak.indiatoday.in)
