Patiala, Sept. 2 -- The Indian Medical Association (IMA), Punjab, on Tuesday, decried the state government's plan to map and train unregistered medical practitioners (URMPs) to provide basic medical care. HT had reported on August 31 about the government's bid to bring informal clinics operating across the state into the formal healthcare net. District health authorities have been instructed to collect detailed profiles of these practitioners, including their educational backgrounds, clinical experience, and operational history for a proposed state-run medical training. Health minister Dr Balbir Singh had made it clear that regulation is the core objective. "We will collect the data and provide them training according to their qualifications," he had said. In a letter to the health minister, the doctors' body warned that a short-term training course could not replace the years of medical education, hands-on clinical training and professional accountability that underpin the practice of medicine. "The proposal to map and train URMPs could compromise patient safety and medical ethics," said Dr RS Sethi, president, IMA-Punjab. The association urged the government to reconsider the move and instead strengthen the rural public healthcare system with qualified doctors and better infrastructure. The doctors' body warned that an inadequately trained person could miss warning signs, delay referral or treat a patient beyond their competence, leading to serious complications and potentially irreversible consequences. "Healthcare is not merely a skill that can be imparted through a short-duration training programme," the IMA said, stressing that diagnosis, clinical judgment, interpretation of investigations, recognition of complications, emergency management, rational prescribing and timely referral require years of structured medical education and supervised clinical training. The IMA further said the government's objective of improving access to healthcare in rural and underserved areas was laudable, but "short-term administrative or financial gains" could not come at the cost of patient safety. Instead of creating a parallel category of minimally trained practitioners, the association called for increasing the availability of qualified MBBS doctors in rural areas, providing incentives for doctors posted in difficult areas, strengthening primary and community health centres, filling vacant posts and improving emergency referral, ambulance, diagnostic and specialist-referral services. "The answer to a shortage of doctors should be more doctors, better distribution of doctors and better healthcare infrastructure-not a lower standard of medical qualification," Dr Sethi said. "We urge the minister to reconsider and review the reported proposal in its present form and ensure that no person lacking the legally recognised qualification and registration required to practice modern medicine is permitted to independently diagnose, prescribe or treat patients merely on the basis of short-term training," the letter added....