Paradigm shift in health education needed

BANGALORE: Calling farmers’ suicides a national emergency, Community Health Advisor for the Centre for Public Health and Equity (SOCHARA) Dr Ravi Narayana opined that medical professionals were unable to deal with the situation owing to the lack of a larger understanding of things.Delivering the endowment lecture at the foundation day of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) here on Friday, Dr Narayana said, “More than 2 lakh farmers kill themselves every year. It is not a virus or bacteria causing this, but our credit policy and foolish agricultural planning. We should make our medical professionals able to deal and understand the situation.”He stressed on the need to shift from a bio-medical paradigm to health sciences paradigm along with a shift from multi-disciplinary to multi-sectoral framework to make medical education and healthcare equitable.“Medical education should not be just about knowing what drug to administer for what illness. In order to move to health sciences, students must be trained in  psychology, ecology, behavioural sciences and the likes,” he said. He said that the health plan for 2012-2017 developed by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) would be able to provide. “Affordable, accountable and appropriate healthcare regardless of income, status, religion etc.”