Foreign medicos to join fight against virus

Foreign medicos to join fight against virus

State eases restriction on internship

20/05/2021

S. Vijay KumarCHENNAI

In a significant order, Tamil Nadu has lifted the restriction on the intake of students for internship at government medical colleges as a one-time measure to handle COVID-19.

“We have decided to rope in the foreign medical graduates [under the Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship or CRRI] as part of the measures to strengthen the health workforce to manage the situation,” Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma. Subramanian told The Hindu.

The decision will pave the way for about 500 foreign medical graduates to join the health workforce. They have been waiting for internship, having completed their degree at foreign universities and cleared the qualifying examination conducted by the National Medical Commission.

The decision followed a proposal sent by the Director of Medical Education (DME), who underscored the urgent need for measures to contain COVID-19 cases that had reached “alarming proportions” with increased mortality.

NOC sought

The DME requested the government for permission to issue no-objection certificate (NOC) for the CRRI to students of other States, private colleges and other universities and foreign medical graduates without any ceiling.

The proposal was to relax the Tamil Nadu Medical Council’s stipulation that medical colleges issue the NOC to foreign medical graduates and students of other States after ensuring that the admission under the CRRI did not exceed 10% of the MBBS seats allotted by the National Medical Commission.