MOHFW releases the National Occupational Standards for Allied Health & Paramedics

Ghulam Nabi Azad, Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Government of India released the National Occupational Standards for Allied Health & Paramedics at the Healthcare Skill Summit, organised by CII, NSDC and Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC). While complimenting the HSSC for its landmark achievement of developing the National Occupational standards, he said that this was a very important initiative from the point of view of both public health as well as employment generation. The Government of India attaches highest priority to skill development, aimed at creating productive employment, he added. He was particularly happy that as many as fifteen allied health areas requiring diverse skill sets had been covered in the occupational standards by the HSSC in the first instance itself. These job roles were critical support-roles in the healthcare delivery system and having a uniform standard would definitely help in better provision of patient care services in different categories of health institutions located across the country.

Azad highlighted various initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which had transformed the health sector in the country. Some of these were screening for diabetes and hypertension, free entitlements for mothers and children, mobile medical units and ambulances and Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram. He emphasised that successful and effective implementation of all these initiatives and national programmes required greater availability of trained and skilled human resources and therefore he drew a lot of satisfaction at the constitution of the Healthcare Sector Skill Council by the National Skill Development Corporation and CII.

The Minister particularly hailed the HSSC for responding to the needs of the community by choosing community related job roles such as Diabetes Educator and Frontline Health Workers on priority basis. He felt that the work of the HSSC would be very useful in developing better training modules to impart requisite skills among those working in the allied health sector. He advised the Council to develop short courses on healthcare and pay particular attention to soft skills training amongst healthcare support workers. He also urged the Council to prioritise those allied health and paramedical jobs for which provision had been kept in the various national programmes so that adequate number of skilled manpower was quickly made available at the primary and secondary healthcare levels.

He opined that the work of the Council, under the able guidance of its Chairman, Dr Naresh Trehan, would render far reaching services to the community by produce technically competent, socially sensitive, ethically correct and ready to serve health professionals who would be able to respond to the diverse demands of India’s growing health needs.

Addressing the Summit earlier, S Ramadorai, Chairman, National Skill Development Corporation said that he was delighted to attend one of the first summits on skills organised by the Sector Skill Council. He congratulated the HSSC for taking rapid strides not only in giving vision and shape to the skill development agenda for Allied Health and Paramedics but also making significant progress on the ground. He said that the launch of the National Occupational Standards was a testament to the significant progress made by HSSC.  Mr Ramadorai offered valuable suggestions on skill development and exhorted the Industry to come forward and set up scalable training initiatives using technology. He opined that the Healthcare Sector was poised for huge growth and required trained and certified manpower which could be provided by the HSSC.

Dr Naresh Trehan, Chairman Healthcare Sector Skill Council and CMD Medanta- The Medicity, in his keynote address said that the country urgently needed to address the issue of Healthcare infrastructure, accessibility and most importantly-human capital. He said that HSSC had the monumental task of training 4.8 million allied health and paramedic professionals in the next ten years; who would provide valuable support to doctors and nurses.

Shivinder Singh, Executive Vice Chairman, Fortis Healthcare shared the industry perspective and said that low cost healthcare solutions, optimal utilisation of available infrastructure and trained manpower would provide long term solutions for the healthcare industry.

In his concluding remarks, S Mahalingam, Chairman, CII National Committee on Skill Development said that we needed to make a career in healthcare an aspirational one for the youth of our country. He said that there was no uniform structure of courses and curriculum across India leading to issues with regard to mobility. As a result there was an inconsistency in the competency level affecting efficiency, productivity and delivery of healthcare services. The HSSC was working on removing many of these impediments and creating an eco-system for standardised healthcare training.

EH News Bureau