ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The "doctor-population ratio" and the metric fixation in Indian health policy (1947-2025)

• In Event: Circulating Care: Universities, Hospitals, and the Making of Medical Expertise

English Abstract

Over the past 15 years, India has witnessed a massive increase in the number of medical colleges: from around 315 colleges in 2011, to 819 in 2025. The Ministry of Health has justified this rise using statistical measures: that India has a shortage of biomedical doctors and needs to achieve a 1:1000 doctor-population ratio. However, this is a historically unprecedented phenomenon. Ever since independence, medical and public health experts in India have consistently opposed the rapid "mushrooming" of medical colleges for multiple reasons, including the compromising of education quality and the potential for doctor unemployment. This paper will focus on the history of medical education policy in India and analyze how it drastically changed from a consensus of "India has a sufficient number of doctors" in as late as 2005, to the more recent perspective that India has an acute shortage of doctors that can only be remedied via a tremendous increase in medical colleges admissions.

Author

• Kiran kumbhar, University of Pennsylvania