Doctors retirement age now 65

The State government on Friday increased the retirement age of senior doctors in medical colleges across Telangana from 58 years to 65 years. 

The decision to enhance the retirement age was taken to retain senior faculty in teaching hospitals, whose presence is mandatory to get Medical Council of India (MCI) permissions to establish new medical colleges, enhance bed strength and MBBS seats.

“In the last two years, we received permissions to start medical colleges in Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, Suryapet and Siddipet. More medical colleges are in the offing in the next few years and to get MCI permissions, we need to retain senior faculty members in all government medical colleges,” Health Minister Etela Rajender said on Friday.

At present, senior faculty such as Professors and Associate Professors who retire from government-run teaching hospitals, are immediately absorbed by private medical colleges. Due to the presence of retired Professors and Associate Professors, private medical colleges have been able to steadily add more MBBS seats and beds, which is being seen as a loss to public healthcare institutions.

“Based on the suggestions of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, we want to enhance the overall bed strength of government hospitals in Hyderabad to at least 3,000



beds. However, we are not getting enough space to start new hospitals and so we are now focussing on enhancing bed strength at Gandhi Hospital and OGH. This is only possible if we have senior faculty on our rolls,” the Health Minister said.

In the last two years, the State has started four new medical colleges and was able to sustain these medical colleges and transform them into Centres of Excellence, there is a definite need to have senior talented medical faculty who can provide top-quality medical education in districts. The senior faculty in any medical college is entirely made up of Professors and Associate Professors while the junior or entry level faculty comprises Assistant Professors, who can be recruited directly.

However, once a Professor or Associate Professor retires, it becomes very difficult to recruit them again, senior health officials said. “While government teaching hospitals are choked with patients, private teaching hospitals in Hyderabad and districts are lying vacant. Each private hospital attached to the medical college will have at least 600 to 800 beds but a majority of the beds are left unused. We are trying to come out with a framework that will allow us to utilise infrastructure developed by private medical colleges,” the Minister said.