Telangana HC directs state govt to implement GO-428 to provide training to 40,000 RMPs

Hyderabad, July 27, 2021:

The Telangana State High Court (HC) has directed the state government to implement the Government Order (GO) 428 issued by it in the year 2015 to train around 40,000 registered medical practitioners (RMPs) under the ‘Community Paramedical Training’ programme in the state.

While disposing off a writ petition filed by P Venkanna, president of RMPs-PMPs Association, the High Court led by a single bench judge asked the state government to immediately implement the GO-428 and ensure that all the 40,000 odd RMPs-PMPs are trained as community medical practitioners to handle basic first aid healthcare services to the people in rural areas.

In fact, way back in 2015, when the state government was revisiting its healthcare policy, it wanted to increase the healthcare workforce to meet the growing healthcare services by well trained medical practitioners. For this purpose, the government had issued the GO-248 and had decided to provide training to all the registered medical practitioners in the state to overcome the wide gap of availability of healthcare workers in the rural areas. However, following this order by the state government, the members from Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) challenged the state government’s order and filed a petition in the HC against the government’s orders and staged protest across the state.

Ever since, the GO-248 was put under abeyance. In view of this, the RMPs-PMPs Association has approached the HC seeking judicial intervention on the issue to direct the state government to implement the same and provide justice to the community healthcare workers in the rural areas.

“Earlier the state government had issued the GO-248 to provide training to the RMPs and PMPs under the Community Premedical Training progarmme’ but even after 6 years have gone past, the state government had not even released a single paisa to train the rural healthcare workers. Despite our repeated representations to the state government but no response, in view of this we had approached the High Court for justice,” informed P Venkanna.

Following the petition earlier by the HRDA in the HC, the HC had in 2018 had asked the government to prepare a report on the situation and also asked if any suitable laws governing the RRMPs operations were made.

In view of this the RMPs-PMPs Association is now seeking the HCs intervention to direct the state government to implement the GO and help the RMPs-PMPs to get training to provide quality healthcare services to the public in the rural areas. PharmaBiz