India needs doctors, not MBAs

Yesterday I was talking to a boy - a trainee in the company I work for - about his goal in life. He was more than happy to tell me that he was attending a coaching institute where they prepare students to face one of the countless MBA entrance exams. I am a journalist not an MBA and therefore I asked him whether it was necessary for someone to obtain a Business Management qualification. He gave me a perplexed glance, raised his eyebrows and replied in an accentuating manner, “Of course, it is.”

“Everyone is going for an MBA. Why? Because it guarantees you a good job with a fat paycheque,” he said in an excited way. The conversation then proceeded to other things.

Just a few days back I read in a regional newspaper about a boy in a small town who fell from a tree seriously injuring his liver. The report said that he was bleeding profusely and was taken to a nearby medical center. His family was mulling over the possibility of taking him to a top hospital in the city. The problem was that the distance to the hospital in the city was of a good measure and the doctor treating the boy in the local medical center knew that he may not survive the distance. Therefore, this doctor took it upon himself to save the boy’s life. According to reports, his treatment kept the boy alive and fit enough for shifting to the hospital in the city. The boy survived.

Imagine the fate of the boy had that doctor opted for a career in Business Management early in his life. Frankly speaking, India needs more doctors than MBAs.

According to various reports, India has approximately 6,00,000 doctors. Data available with the World Health Organisation puts that figure to 6,60,801 as in 2005. India has a population of over a billion. In approximate figures that translates to 1 doctor per 1,800 people.  Countries like Brazil and Thailand are better off with a ratio of 1:844 and 1:500 respectively. No need to think of Germany which has a ratio of 1:296.

Worse is the fact that a majority of doctors or, in other words, the medical facilities are concentrated in urban areas of the country. There are many areas in rural India where there is a serious dearth of proper medical services. Those areas are dominated by quacks (unqualified people posing as doctors) and/or practitioners of Ayurveda, Unani, Homeopathy or Siddha. The later ones provide basic medical treatment but cannot operate on a person in the case, say for example, of the boy I wrote about above.

Even in the urban areas, the government run hospitals are few and far between. Add to it the pathetic conditions of many of them and you have the perfect threat to the dream of a developed India. Most of the hospitals are privately run, a majority of which charge a fees that may put an average Bollywood actor to shame. There is no need to discuss the government as every Indian is aware of how it functions.

Talking about government, India’s closest competitor is way ahead. China had 19, 05,436 registered medical practitioners for its population as in 2009 according to the WHO. Yes, China presently holds the distinction of being the most populated country in the world but India will soon surpass it. Consider then the situation here. 

We are in dire need of more doctors. We also need to stop the tendency of medical practitioners to leave for foreign shores. According to a report, there are nearly 60,000 Indian doctors in countries like US, UK, Australia and Canada alone.

Interest in a career in medicine must be increased. Better opportunities should be created in India itself for the doctors to stay back. More colleges are needed without compensating on the quality of education. Medical research must be given a boost.

The Medical Council of India lists 335 medical colleges imparting education in India. Compare this to the 1600 odd MBA colleges and you know where the country is heading.

Doing good business can never become the parameter of gauging a country’s overall development status. Of all the countless number of MBA graduates that we produce in India, 60 percent are fools, 30 percent know how to fool others and only 10 percent are the real MBAs.

Nearly every Sales Executive whether in a retail store or at your door is an MBA from an institution which may be operating out of a rented apartment. There are many MBAs who were unable to even pass their school exams properly, if you know what I mean. Barring those who pass from the elite IIMS or a handful of other equally competent colleges, nearly all of them are aimless people. In other words, since they were not good in any other discipline, they chose MBA for the simple reason because it is easy to pass if it is not from the IIMs or the other competent ones. They are the fools.

Some go for an MBA with dreams of becoming as ‘wealthy’ as Tata or Birla. Nobody wants to ‘be’ a Tata or Birla. They fail to see the hardships these legends of business faced to build their empires where it stands today. Such MBAs always try to take the shortcut to earning more money. They will never back down from fooling a gullible person into buying something which he/she may not need at all. They are those who fool others.

Over the last few years some innovative minds have come out with new business models that are essential for economic as well as social development. They face political, financial or other problems but continue doing their work. These are the real MBAs. They have the potential to give a positive direction to a business and society equally. Interestingly, many of them do not have an MBA qualification at all.

If the government continues to allow opening of MBA institutions on the premise of making India a developed nation, it will have disastrous consequences in the long run. The people of India need more doctors and medical researchers to counter the ever rising cases of unknown diseases. The Japanese Encephalitis is one such example where lack of proper medical facilities claimed more than 800 lives. The government should stop boasting about Medical Tourism if it cannot protect its own people on the ground.

By 2031 there will be a shortfall of close to a million doctors. According to the planning commission, India is short of six lakh doctors, a million nurses and almost two lakh dentists. What will India do with the money if the people do not live to enjoy the wealth?

It is the duty of the government to take concrete measures in protecting the people of the country. More needs to be spent on health, especially public sector. According to reports, of the 5.1 percent of the GDP spent on health an approximate 17 percent only is spent on the public sector.

Improving the economy is good but it should not come at the cost of lives. Bundles of money and batches of MBAs could not have been able to achieve what that doctor did in the small town. After all, saving a life is incalculably valuable than a billion dollar business plan.