Study of unqualified rural medical practitioners (URMPs) through scientific training in proper use of medicine

1. Balaram Ghosh, Assco, 1.Pragnadyuti Mandal, 2Saroj Krishna Bhattacharya and *1Swapan Kumar Jana,

India has a plurality of health care systems as well as different systems of medicine. India is drawing the world’s attention. Unqualified medical practitioners (URMPs) treat people in rural, semi-urban and urban areas of India, which is seen only here and protected legally. There is no existence of this type of unqualified practitioners in other countries of the world. The study was undertaken to educate the URMPs in science of medicine use and rational use of medicine. The interventional study was started on 2000. For the study, workshops were conducted by medical graduates of modern medicine. Duration of the workshops was 1-5 days. A module/syllabus was prepared which was discussed in the workshops. Forty workshops were conducted in 15 districts of West Bengal in 13 years. Two thousand six hundred sixteen (2616) URMPs from 1450 villages were participated in the workshops. The educational activity has created awareness among the URMPs regarding rational therapeutics, URMPs association has been formed and rural medical libraries have been developed in different districts of West Bengal, a state in India. State is unable to deliver healthcare to all the people, on the contrary URMPs are illegal practitioners as per state laws. The URMPs may act as part of the state healthcare delivery system if they are educated properly through continuous interventional activities like one which we have initiated.

 

Keywords: Unqualified medical practitioners, rural areas, medicine use  

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