India can take a vital step towards the well-being of its citizens by increasing the retirement age of doctors employed in the services of the Central and state governments. In recent decades, the average lifespan of Indians has been steadily improving. India has made significant progress in healthcare, technology, and living standards. India’s average life expectancy has risen from about 37 years in 1950 to about 70 years now.
However, the retirement age of doctors has not kept pace with these changes. Although the retirement age of doctors has been set at 65 years, there is scope to raise it further because there is a shortage of doctors in government hospitals. The time has come to raise the retirement age of doctors to 70 years. We will find hundreds of doctors in the country who are practicing even beyond 70 years of age. Dr. R.K. Caroli, a cardiologist associated with Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML) in the capital, used to see patients for four to five hours every day until the age of 90. He was the physician to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri. In Mumbai, renowned heart specialist Dr. B.K. Goyal was active after seeing more than 80 springs. Hundreds of such examples can be found. Several new medical colleges will be established in India in the coming years.
The government is trying to get more than 50,000 doctors every year from medical colleges across the country. Besides these, there are also doctors who come back to India after obtaining their medical degrees abroad. We can thus assume that the number of doctors in the country’s health sector will continue to grow. At the same time, it is also necessary to ensure that the country’s health sector benefits from the experience of experienced and senior doctors. This is being said because there can be no substitute for experience. Dr. Vinay Agarwal, former president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), believes that increasing the retirement age of government doctors to 70 will not only alleviate the shortage of experienced doctors, but will also provide young doctors with necessary guidance.
In fact, experience matters a lot in the world of medicine. When a young man or woman joins a medical college, he/she remains in touch with senior and experienced doctors in addition to teachers for guidance. Therefore, it is very important that the experience of senior doctors remains available to those who are coming into the medical profession. Experienced senior doctors and new doctors coming into the profession can work together to better treat patients. In this light, increasing the retirement age of government doctors can be a necessary step. Since doctors take great care of their health, many are fully fit to work till the age of 70.
There is still a severe shortage of experienced doctors in rural parts of the country. People from rural India go to hospitals in big cities when they fall sick. Every day, thousands of people from far-flung states go to AIIMS, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital etc. in the national capital for treatment. If adequate doctors and superior facilities were available in their villages, why would they travel hundreds of miles? Increasing the age of government doctors can, to some extent, fill the shortage of doctors in villages. There is a severe shortage of specialist doctors in community health centres in rural India.
This is a very worrying situation. Increasing the retirement age will give doctors posted there an opportunity to serve society. Medical professionals say there is a need to meet the demand for surgeons, obstetricians and gynaecologists, physicians and paediatricians in rural parts of the country. Increasing the service period of doctors will help meet a part of the shortage of specialist doctors in the villages. Senior doctors often play a vital role in health sector management and policy making.
Their service extension will enable their expertise to be used in shaping policies and improving hospital management. When the retirement age for doctors was fixed in India, the average lifespan of Indians was much lower. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the average life expectancy was low, a retirement age of 55 years was considered appropriate. In the 1970s, it increased to 58 years, and then to 60 years in the 1990s.
In 2017, the retirement age for doctors of the central government was increased to 65 years to retain experienced medical professionals for a longer time. Now the need of the hour is to increase the retirement age of doctors associated with central and state government hospitals. In the US and Europe, doctors associated with research work remain in service for their entire life. When this system can work in other countries, why not in India? The time has come for India to review the retirement age for its doctors.
(The writer is an author and columnist.)