‘Forget research, overworked govt docs don’t get time to sleep’

That government hospital doctors are overloaded with work to find time for research is well known. On Monday, Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad made it official.

“I feel the private sector should play a large role in fostering innovation because researchers and doctors in institutions like AIIMS, which was primarily launched with intention to encourage research, are busy conducting operations and attending to phone calls as they are flooded with recommendations. I get 100 calls every day to recommend patients to be operated on a priority basis. I think they (doctors) can hardly sleep. Then where is the time for research,” he asked.

He said the government can do little as it is busy with elections all through the year.

“India has elections every three months because of a multi-layer parliamentary system, where everything comes to a standstill because of the code of conduct. There are corporation elections, zilla parishad and municipality elections. During elections ... every thing comes to a standstill. Twenty years back, this was not the case, but thanks to the Election Commission, government officers are now busy 365 days,” he said.

On the regulatory front, he said efforts were being made to improve the regulatory framework in the country. He applauded the private sector for investing significantly in research and development.

“Quite some time back, I was informed how the Indian industry took the lead in producing Hepatitis B vaccine through genetic engineering approaches and thus bringing down the prices to less than 5% of its original price. This made the vaccine affordable to the masses not only in our country but the rest of the world,” he said.