General practitioners provide 80% of healthcare in villages: IMA

Guwahati, Dec 10: Inaugurating a national level conference of the College of General Practitioners (Academic Wing), Indian Medical Association (IMA), the National President of IMA, Dr. RV Asokan said that 80% of village population healthcare is taken care of by general practitioners.

‘The general practitioners should be empowered and updated with current ongoing health issues’, he said.

To highlight the crucial roles played by general practitioners in community health, the two-day national-level conference, GP- CON, was organized for the first time in Assam and the Northeast.

The programme started with a symposium on medical ethics. Various dignitaries like Prof JA Jayalal, president of the Commonwealth Medical Association, Prof S Arulrhaj from Tamil Nadu, the Vice Chancellor of Srimanta Sankaradeva University of Health Sciences (SSUHS), Dr DJ Borah and Prof Bikash Medhi from PGI, Chandigarh, deliberated on various issues concerning medical ethics.

The conference was attended by more than 200 delegates and faculties from across the country and abroad. Dr Muruga Raj R from Malaysia, Dr Anant Mahapatra from Ireland, Dr Tonmoy Sharma from the USA and Dr Priti Rath from the UK were part of the deliberation in the programme among others.