The government should allow foreign trained doctors to practice and teach in the country to tide over the current and impending human resource shortage in the medical profession, a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci ) and Ernst and young (E&Y) report urged the government.

Currently, only Indian doctors with post graduate medical degrees from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are allowed to practice in any public or private hospital in India.

Also, doctors only with the above-mentioned qualifications are found eligible to teach undergraduate students of a medical college.

?Policy changes need to be worked out to find acceptable qualifications to define the eligibility of such doctors, so that appropriate doctors can be targeted,? said the report.

There is an estimated net addition (new doctors entering minus doctors exiting the system due to retirement or death) of 17,000 doctors annually against a need of 7 lakh additional doctors by the year 2025.

According to an E&Y estimate, the initiative proposed above coupled with others if implemented would more than double the number of doctors by the year 2025, thus increasing the number of doctors from 0.6 to around 1 doctor/ 1,000 population.

If this mark is reached by 2025, the country will almost touch the target of 1 to 1.5, a figure much closer to Brazil?s and China?s doctor density.

The report also says that most of the healthcare expenditure incurred by the middle class and lower income group individual is incurred out of borrowed money, the largest source for financing out of pocket expenditure. According to E&Y, borrowing pushes nearly 3.3% of the country?s population to below poverty line every year.

The problem of people coming under debt for their healthcare expenditure stems from the fact that around 70% of such expenditure is financed out of pocket as around 82% of the country?s population remains out of any kind of health insurance cover.

Major health related insurance schemes (ESIS, CGHS, group insurance, government schemes for poor, community insurance, voluntary insurance) together cover 12% of the country?s over than 1 billion population.

The country?s private healthcare expenditure as a part of total healthcare expenditure forms around 81%, while the corresponding figure for China, Brazil and Russia are 61%, 56% and 38%.

The report has also urged the government to revisit and reconsider the current eligibility of a minimum of 25 acres of contiguous land required to establish a medical college.

Replying to such a demand made earlier, Naresh Dayal, secretary, ministry of health and family welfare told a seminar held in the auspices of Ficci on Thursday that, ?The health ministry is seriously considering relaxing some of the norms to encourage private sectors to set up medical colleges in India. Some of the norms set by Medical Council of India (MCI) such as preventing medical college from making profits and contiguous land requirement of 25 acres are not viable in the present circumstances. We are in the process of changing them.?

In a related development, Shivinder Mohan Singh, chairman, Ficci health services committee and CEO, Fortis Healthcare reiterated the industry?s demand for the healthcare services to be accorded ?infrastructure status?.

Singh told FE, ?We have asked for a minimum of 10-15 years tax holiday for the sector.

An infrastructure status would mean custom duty waiver, excise duty waiver, soft loans, interest subsidy in terms of fiscal benefits. Among non-fiscal benefits, it would mean faster clearances of licenses, single window clearances etc.?

In the eleventh plan document it is mentioned that the healthcare sector may be considered for the ?infrastructure? status.