DDUGKY and Skilling for health.....

DDUGKY and Skilling for health.....

It was not just a matter of chance that I got invited to the launch of the Western India Health Sector Skills Council at the Hinduja Hospital the other day. Two weeks back , MSRLM Umed had organised a multi-state, multi sector CXO meet of all Executives to introduce them to Deendayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, DDUGKY, Government of India's flagship programme for rural skills. I happened to meet Ms.Bhavisha , Senior Manager, Special Projects and Academics, Hinduja Hospital there and understood the work they are doing for skilling in the Health sector. The invitation to the launch of the Western India Health Sector skills Council was a fall-out of that meeting.
Even as I got introduced as the guest of honour, many may have wondered at the relevance of my presence there. To me , of course all the discussions sounded like music since MSRLM undertakes skilling of rural youth through DDUGKY.
I knew I was at the right place.
The Health Sector Skills Council is a non-statutory certifying body under the Skill development ministry. It develops the national standards qualification pack and the national occupational standards, QP-NOS. It undertakes capacity building of trainees, trainers, assesors. It is also the assessing and certification authority. It provides job aggregation and placements support by working as the National Registry.

Health, as defined by the World Health Organization(WHO), is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmty. Modern day living has lead to a lot of change in the lifestyle of people resulting in various health problems. Health management is therefore the need of the hour. It is estimated that in the coming decade there would be a requirement of about 14.2 million health professionals. The IIMs of Bengaluru and Kolkata have already included health management in their institutes. These would necessarily mean  creation of high end management consultants and experts.
However at the ground level there is a dire need of service providers and health workers.
In a country dwelling and surviving on academics and glorifying traditional courses like engineering and medicine, vocational education and ITIs are not glamorous.options as yet.
There is another set of students who are drop outs or are unsuccessful in their school and college and have been unable to complete their atudies. DDUGKY is a programme through which skilling of such youth for jobs and placements is possible.
The programme is being implemented by the Maharashtra State Rural livelihoods Mission in Maharashtra and focuses on training and placing rural youth after completion of courses. Retail, hospitality, logistics, security are the popular sectors in getting skiller. Bed-side assistant is also popular and much in demand due to the need for geriatric care.
Health sector is refining itself with each passing day. Overall, the skilling scenario in the health sector can be broken up into three parts. About sixty percent of the workers are high end which would require a great deal of technical expertise qnd knowledge.
However DDUGKY can be the channel.for skilling middle level and field level health workers.
The Middle level health workers constitute about 25% of the work force and are those who do jobs like blood sample collection, eye check up, X-ray technician, ultra sound technician. Training them may be slightly challenging and difficult therefore the numbers maybe lesser . However for those skilled and working in this sector the salaries are reasonably good.
The bottom 15 percent are easy to train and have access to many jobs. However their drop out rates are higher as they drift to better options. Edulight, a Project Implementation Agency of MSRLM for DDUGKY has trained 433 candidates from which only about 300 got jobs and ironically  many of those who got the jobs left them.  Choosing the right candidate for training through proper counselling and mobilisation is the biggest challenge in the health sector which is service oriented and needs candidates with patience and tolerance.
The health sector is burgeoning and is the largest sector in terms of revenue and employment.  It  has thrown up several avenues for jobs which need skilling. Till date MSRLM DDUGKY has trained over 1818 candidates, given jobs to 1469 candidates  and placed 643 candidates.
The proliferation of pathological labs for MRI, blood etc is leading to a high demand for professionals as each lab needs about 10-12 resources.
Medical care is becoming increasingly corporatised leading to requirements of qualified staff there too.
Preventive health care, insurance, non-tech jobs like hospital and clinic managers and clerks etc are also increasing
Back end jobs in healthcare are also increasing mainly due to the rules of the medical council to maintain records of patients and also due to the insurance industry where maintaining records is compulsory. Penetration of health institutes into 2 tier and 3 tier cities are also creating new opportunities. 25 per cent of the jobs in the health care industry are in hospitals.
Every bed in a hospital needs technical staff and backend clerical staff too. HEALTHTECH is another big area waiting for explosion. PRACTO, CHECK UP etc are companies which are doing very well
Medical transcription and medical outsourcing is another interesting area in the health arena. Companies like IKS are an example of how medical KPOs are big business employing nearly 9000 people in a single entity
Medical TOURISM is also growing. Lesser privileged countries prefer india due to low cost of treatment and rich countries prefer india due to excellent quality of doctors. Several big enterprises are managing medical tourism as a business.

Overall the health sector is in a boom. The health industry needs to acknowledge government programmes like DDUGKY for skilling and leverage it for the benwfit of all.

Mahatma Gandhi has said, it is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. This maxim is applicable for every individual who has to make efforts to maintain their health. For those into this business of health, William Osler rightly quoted, " It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has."
In the field of health services , the very first step in the occupation would be to be completely interested in it.