India’s sick poor turn to unlicensed doctors

San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 2008

There are hundreds of thousands of unqualified doctors working across India, with an estimated 40,000 in Delhi's teeming slums alone, according to the Delhi Medical Council that registers doctors and monitors medical standards. For years, the government has waged an unsuccessful war against such doctors. But now a report compiled by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences recommends training and incorporating them into the formal healthcare system, which suffers from a dearth of physicians and nurses.