I think all the members of the Lok Sabha are aware of the scheme to bring into being the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The money for this has been allocated in our budget for the last 3 or 4 years. It was actually owing to the generous donation from the New Zealand Government under the Colombo Plan of £1,250,000,000 that the Government of India was enabled to begin to establish this Institute. It has been one of my cherished dreams that for postgraduate study and for the maintenance of high standards of medical education in our country, we should have an institute of this nature in India which would enable our young men and women to have their post-graduate education in their own country, in their background with the necessary experience that we would all like to have of work in villages and the impetus that we would like to give to them to do research in the various spheres of medical education.
Medical education, in its theory as well as in its practice, is based on the utilisation of the contributions from the other physical and biological sciences. With the continued progress that has been taking place in both these fields, modern medicine has made and is making enormous strides towards increasing efficiency in regard to diagnosis and in regard to treatment and prevention of disease, as well as promotion of positive health. Therefore, the task of medical education, by and large, is to utilise as far as possible this new knowledge in training the doctor of the future. Medical education must, above all, take into account the special needs of the country from the point of view of affording health protection to the people.
For instance, in our own country, and in Asian countries generally, the continued prevalence of various forms of preventable causes of sickness and suffering necessitates special emphasis, if I may so put it, on the preventive aspect of medical care. Further, the extent to which the future doctor will contribute his share to the well being of the country also depends on the extent to which he develops a community outlook and a desire to serve the people.
Medical education, moreover, is receiving considerable attention in all the progressive countries of the world. I have had the privilege recently to see what is being done in the U.S.A., in the U.S.S.R., in Scandinavia, and even in the U.K. and the various steps that are being pursued to bring it more and more into consonance with present day needs and to promote an increasing realisation of the object of equipping the future doctor to give his best to the community. India cannot afford to keep apart from this broad and steady programme of development that is taking place in other parts of the world.
The idea of the establishment of this All India Institute is to fulfil the purposes which I have mentioned. I need not go into the details about how the Institute will function. It is first going to start with a medical training centre which will provide under-graduate study to only a very very limited few. The major emphasis will be on postgraduate study and specialisation, because one reason for our inability to fulfil the desire of so many States today to have medical colleges is the lack of personnel. One of the main duties of this Medical Institute will be to prepare personnel for medical colleges which it is becoming increasingly hard for us to get. I may inform the Members that when the States ask for medical colleges to be started, nearly always they have to go to retired personnel to carry on. How long can we go on relying on retired personnel? It is absolutely essential that we prepare young men and young women of the highest calibre who will be able to man our educational institutions, in particular. This demand, as I have said, is increasing.
I would now like to mention one or two special features of this Institute. The system that prevails of private practice being permitted to doctors in medical colleges has, in my opinion – I know I have many people who differ from me, especially members of the medical profession — had a deleterious effect on the development of both sound teaching and active research in colleges. And therefore, in order to prohibit in this Institute, which is the first of its kind in our country and the first of its kind in Asia, private practice of every form and to pay the doctors reasonably high salaries to compensate them for the loss of private practice, is going to be a special feature.
The doctors, if they are paid enough, will then be able to live contentedly and to devote their whole time to the promotion not only of teaching, not only of serving the patients who come to the hospitals, but also to what is very important, namely research. Then, all the staff and students are going to be housed in the campus of the Institute. The campus of the Institute is proceeding ahead fairly rapidly and I shall welcome any Members of this House who would like to come and have a look at the premises to see for themselves how things are going on. It is in Delhi just beyond the Safdarjung aerodrome.
Also I feel that by housing the staff and the students on the campus, we shall be reviving and taking advantage of what I believe has been one of the traditional good things in our country, that is the guru-shishya relationship which has, in my opinion, not been given that attention that it should be given.
Further I want every student whether undergraduate or postgraduate to have ample opportunities to participate in both urban and rural health work, in rural centres as well as in the cities. I want the student even during his student days to participate and take some responsibility for the health of those who will later on be committed to his charge, because I feel that will promote in him early in his career a community outlook and also promote powers of initiative and observation and of drawing conclusions from them. When I was in America a year before last, one thing struck me greatly. I was listening to a fourth year student who was not yet qualified giving a complete history of the case which had been put in his charge. In America much more responsibility is being laid on students once they get towards the last year of their stay in a college.
Then, of course, this Institute will be given the powers and functions of a university because it will probably make revolutionary changes, as I hope, in curriculum as well as in modes of teaching, and therefore I feel that in the first instance, at any rate, the university status given to this Institute will permit it to give diplomas to all the students who pass out of its portals. Of course, they will be recognised qualifications and they will have to be put down in the Indian Medical Council after an amendment to which I hope very soon to introduce in this House.
Subject to such minimum control as the Government of India may exercise through its rule-making powers, the Institute will enjoy a large measure of autonomy in order that it may fulfil the objectives – I humbly claim that they are very fine objectives which I have tried to set forth in this brief survey. The Government of India will, of course, make itself responsible for providing adequate funds for the maintenance of the Institute, but I hope that philanthropy also will come to the aid, as it so often does, of such institutions because, after all, serving the cause of sick and suffering humanity is always something that appeals to those who would like to give.
The future of the Institute will lie ultimately in the hands of the Director, the Professors and other members of the teaching staff and students, and I believe it will be their devotion to duty, their desire to promote their work and the spirit of altruism that will actuate them to subordinate personal considerations, as I believe the noble profession of medicine should do, to the fulfilment of the objectives to be achieved that will eventually create and maintain the atmosphere which is necessary for an institute like this. I do therefore hope that in presenting this Bill for acceptance by Parliament today; the legal structure that is created may facilitate the progressive realisation of a steady development of improved methods of medical education in this Institute and that, through the influence it exerts, the standards of different forms of professional training in the field of health throughout the country will be raised. With these few words I commend this measure to the acceptance of this House.
I am sorry that such an enormous amount of heat has been engendered over a Bill which is really a very straightforward and simple measure, and as such should have received the unanimous support of this House.
The plan for this All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been before this House for the last four years; we have discussed the question from the point of view of education, from the point of view of maintaining standards, and also from the point of view of giving to our people postgraduate studies in their own country and in their own background. If you will turn to clause 15 on page 5, you will find that it has been clearly stated there that this institute is meant, “to provide for under-graduate and post-graduate teaching in the science of modern medicine and other allied sciences, including physical and biological sciences.”
As my hon. friend Shrimati Renu Chakravartty has said, and so clearly said in her speech supporting it, there is no reason why we should not have an institute of this nature. You, Sir, have also said that this does not mean that we are not going to have post-graduate studies in either homoeopathy or Ayurveda. As a matter of fact, post-graduate studies in Ayurveda have already been started on an all-India basis at Jamnagar, and we are upgrading now the College of Homoeopathy in West Bengal, and introducing post-graduate studies, I hope, in Bombay.
Now some criticism has been levelled – I have so little time to reply – as to the official character of the Governing Body. I may bring to the notice of members that there are merely three or four officials out of the seventeen members, because the non-medical scientists and those representing the Indian Science Congress certainly won’t be official representative of the medical faculties are not likely to be officials. Then there are three Members of Parliament who certainly are not officials. So that objection really does not stand.
Then as far as the recurring expenditure is concerned, in the first Five Year Plan appropriations for this Institute have been accepted by the Lok Sabha. It has been stated by an hon. Member who opposes this motion that Rs. 131.15 lakhs is the recurring expenditure of this Institute. I would like to bring to his notice, to your notice Sir, and to the notice of the House that Rs. 131.15 lakhs is the recurring expenditure for 7 years from 1953 to 1959, and not for one year. Everything has been given before. I have no time to go into the details of the expenditure.
As far as the rural and urban centres are concerned, we are going to give teaching in them; it does not mean that there will not be rural and urban centres as Shrimati Renu Chakravartty pointed out, in other parts of India. Doubts were raised as to whether the existing medical colleges will stop post-graduate studies. I would like to assure members, ‘No’, because I have upgraded certain departments for post-graduate studies in various States. That process will be continued. Then all kinds of colleges are not to be concentrated here. The nursing college and the dental college certainly are going to be here with this Institute. You cannot ask me to remove this Institute today from Delhi, because the decision for having it in Delhi was taken many years ago.
I have been asked by one member to give him an assurance about a college in Delhi and to start the same with the Irwin Hospital. If my plans had come about, this Institute would have been functioning by now, but I had to give up the Irwin Hospital at that time. Now, after the States Reorganisation Report is through, and if Delhi does come under the Centre, as has been suggested by that Commission, the Irwin Hospital will then be available. I have certainly in mind that there should be a college in Delhi so that people from this part of the world may not have to go outside for their studies.
I need not discuss Ayurveda because it is not relevant to this issue. I was told that in China many things were being done which we should copy. I may say that China is going ahead with modern medicine, and what is more, they have asked me if they may be allowed to come and study this Bill. In fact, I have sent them a copy of this Bill. They are determined to bring in a measure similar to this in China also. I may say this that I have consulted the best medical educational minds In India, I have consulted scientific minds in India other than medical, persons who practise sciences allied to medicine. I have also consulted the Medical Council of India.
About the name, we call it the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. We do not call it the All India Institute of Modern Medical Sciences. I may say that the name, as it is, is all-inclusive. As Ayurveda and homoeopathy develop and as such of them are taken into modern sciences, they will certainly also benefit thereby by this institution.
With these few words, I would like to assure the Lok Sabha again that there is no insult meant to Ayurveda or to any other system of medicine. This is a pure, honest attempt to bring to this country good standards of medical education and to make them available to all. I quite agree that medical relief should be made cheaper. That will be achieved when we start manufacturing our own medicines and make the highest medical education available to your young people in our own country.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.