Doctor shortage: How India is countering this problem amid rising healthcare demands  

India has traditionally struggled with keeping its healthcare aligned with its ever-growing population, mainly because of the sheer lack of doctors in the country. While the internet and digital revolution have made their presence available even in the remotest parts of the country, a doctor can only dedicate their time to a limited number of patients. Even the inauguration of more hospitals can provide restricted help, as the absence of enough doctors would make this initiative ineffective. This has prompted the government to direct its focus on increasing their numbers.  

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has stated in the Parliament that the ratio of doctors and patients in India is 1:834. While it is above the WHO level, it consists of doctors practising traditional medicine like Ayurveda, Homeopathy and Neuropathy. They have thus focused on increasing the number of undergraduate and graduate seats in medical colleges while parallelly adding medical institutes and hospitals to manage the availability and requirements of doctors. This process is being conducted on a mass scale, but its results will only begin appearing towards the end of this decade.