Bhutan plans to institute a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) college next year if the global pandemic situation improves. Once established, the institution is expected to help increase the number of doctor specialists in the country. The Prime Minister announced this during the presentation of the State of the Nation report, yesterday.
Highlighting the key initiatives taken in the health sector, Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering informed that in view of the limited health specialists in the country, the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital has been training many Bhutanese health workers to become specialists since 2014.
“Since we faced the shortage of doctor specialists in the country, it has been around 6 years now training various health workers to become specialists in different fields. We have understood that the program has been very helpful and we need to increase the number of Bhutanese specialists. For that, we need an MBBS college now. I don’t know how good the situation will be in the coming years but if everything goes well, we will be sharing the good news of an MBBS college by next year,” informed Lyonchhen.
As of now, Bhutan currently has around 141 doctor specialists today.
The Prime Minister also informed that towards the effort of digitalizing the health system, a project on the digitization of health records was also implemented.
“Under the National Digital Drukyul Flagship Program managed by the Information and Communications ministry, you will soon get a digital ID soon like the ID card number. With that ID, if you visit any hospital in the country you will be able to provide all of your health details and history digitally,” Lyonchhen added.
Likewise, the Prime Minister also said that the Health Flagship Project was introduced recently to ensure that no lives are lost to gastric cancer, cervical cancer and breast cancer. And to enhance the screening of gastric cancer, 10 sets of high-end endoscopy machines were also procured. Appropriate transportation arrangements have been made to take screening services to the far-flung and hard-to-reach places in the country.
Passang Dorji
