After creating a huge controversy by claiming that foreign patients who were treated in India developed antibiotic resistance, authors of the superbug New Delhi metallo-B-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) bacteria study published in the United Kingdom-based medical journal The Lancet now say that poor sanitation and unregulated antibiotic use presented an immense challenge and should be of great concern to the Indian health authorities and the World Health Organisation. Responding to queries in the...

The Delhi High Court has asked the Public Information Officer of Directorate of Delhi Health Service(DHS) to pay Rs 50,000 as compensation to a poor man for not providing information pertaining to his treatment in a hospital within the stipulated time under RTI Act. Justice S Muralidhar upheld Central Information Commission's(CIC) August 20 order and dismissed an appeal filed by DHS challenging the compensation awarded by the CIC. "....Any delay...

Dispur has decided to set up a children welfare trust to adopt a holistic and comprehensive policy for physical and mental wellbeing of every child living in Assam. The trust will be headed by chief minister Tarun Gogoi and include personalities like industrialist Ratan Tata as its member. The government will formally float the trust on November 14 on the occasion of Children’s Day. Health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told...

It's official now. At the primary healthcare level, there is no difference in the performance of MBBS doctors with five-and-a-half years' training and non-physician clinicians with three years' training who have been called "legal quacks" by the Indian Medical Association (IMA). This has been demonstrated through a study conducted in Chhattisgarh that compared the performance of different types of clinical care providers at the primary care level. Following the controversy...

The syllabus for the three-year course for rural medical practitioners is ready. It promises to do away with what's "unnecessary" in the four-and-a-half-year MBBS course and prepare "hands-on" doctors at the primary level. The course, called the Bachelor of Rural Health Care (BRHC), is expected to change the landscape of medical education and delivery of health care and hopefully, solve the shortage of doctors in rural areas, home to 70%...