National

Dubai bus crash: 11 Indian victims’ bodies flown home, one cremated in UAE

Dead

Dubai | The mortal remains of 11 Indians killed in a horrific road accident in Dubai were repatriated on Sunday while the body of a 22-year-old Indian was cremated here in the Gulf emirate, an official said.

Twelve Indians were among 17 people killed in Dubai Thursday when a bus, mostly with Eid vacationers coming from Oman, entered a restricted lane and rammed into a low-clearance sign.

The repatriation of 11 Indians was complete when the last three bodies were flown to Mumbai on an Air India flight, the official who was making arrangements for the flights was quoted as saying by the Gulf News.

The flight departed at 3.39am Sunday.

“All mortal remains were moved as scheduled. The procedures were completed by 11.45pm,” he said.

Meanwhile, Roshni Moolchandani, the youngest Indian victim killed in the crash, was cremated here on Saturday at the Jebel Ali crematorium. Her final rites were completed by her family who came over from India, said a social worker, who was assisting the family.

Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul told the paper Saturday that the mortal remains of the Indian victims would be repatriated free of cost by Air India in cases where employers were not bearing expenses.

The consulate had issued travel documents for free and also offered to bear the cost of embalming in cases where the families needed support.

The bus, belonging to the Omani bus transport company Mwasalat, carrying 31 passengers, crashed into a height barrier that cut the left side of the bus and killed passengers sitting on that side.

Dubai Police blamed the Omani driver, who was moderately injured, for the accident, saying “at times a small mistake or negligence can lead to adverse consequences”.

Dear Readers,
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
Some error occurred

Related posts

National

Health Ministry proposes to convert 75 district hospitals into medical colleges

TestHostEntry

New Delhi | The Health Ministry has proposed to convert 75 district hospitals into medical colleges in the third phase of a scheme which aims at boosting the availability of human resource for the health sector.

The proposal is a part of the centrally sponsored scheme for “establishment of new medical colleges by upgrading district or referral hospitals” preferably in underserved districts of the country.

In the first phase, the government had approved converting 58 district hospitals into medical colleges while in the second phase, 24 hospitals were selected.

Out of all these 39 hospitals have become functional while the remaining are still under construction.

“The proposal to convert 75 district hospitals into medical colleges in the third phase of the scheme has been sent for approval to the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC), after which it will be sent to the Cabinet,” a source said.

In this regard, a cabinet note has already been drafted, the source said.

The up-gradation of each of the 75 district hospitals into medical colleges would cost around Rs 325 crore, according to the draft proposal.

Once the proposal is realised, it would fulfil one of the promises made by the BJP in its manifesto for the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Under the scheme, the states put in a proposal earmarking hospitals in underserved districts to be converted into medical colleges keeping the criteria in mind that the district should have no other private or government medical college.

“The scheme aims at meeting the shortfall of human resource in the health sector. Medical colleges are unevenly spread across urban and rural areas of the country presenting wide disparities in the quality of education.

“The shortfall of human resource in health has resulted in skewing the distribution of health workers such that vulnerable populations in rural, tribal and hilly areas continue to be extremely underserved,” a senior health ministry official said.

The scheme will serve to create additional 10,000 MBBS and 8,000 PG seats in the country, bridge the gap in number of seats available in government and private sector, mitigate the shortage of doctors and medical faculty in India by increasing the number of seats and to achieve the desired doctor- population ratio.

The registration data from professional councils indicates that the availability of one doctor per population of 1953 (HLEG Report) which is far less than that recommended by WHO norms of one doctor per 1000 population.

Further, to meet the requirements of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) there is need for improvement in the country’s present doctor population ratio from 0.5 per 1000 persons to one doctor per 1000 persons by the end of the year 2027.

The scheme mentions that the country has one of the largest number of medical colleges in the world (422), with an annual production of over 57, 000 doctors and 25, 000 specialists.

However, India’s average annual output of graduates per medical college is much less as compared to 149 in Western Europe, 220 in Eastern Europe and 930 in China.

Further, the medical colleges in the private sector have increased exponentially where poor students find it difficult to afford education.

This also necessitates an increase in MBBS Seats in government medical colleges.

“Hence, by opening new government medical colleges by attaching existing district/referral hospitals on one hand and liberalising some MCI norms on the other, a substantial number of MBBS seats can be increased thereby making affordable medical education available in the country and mitigating shortage of doctors with respect to the population and distribution of the human resources across the country,” the scheme states.

Related posts

News Hub