Tuesday, May 24, 2022
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Management Of Private Medical Colleges Prohibited From Accepting Payment Of Fees In Cash: SC Issues Directions To Curb Capitation Fee Menace
Management Of Private Medical Colleges Prohibited From Accepting Payment Of Fees In Cash: SC Issues Directions To Curb Capitation Fee Menace: The Supreme Court, in an order passed on Thursday, has prohibited managements of private medical colleges from accepting payment of fees in cash.This is to avoid charging of capitation fee. The...
6k foreign med grads struggle to get internships annually
6k foreign med grads struggle to get internships annually
Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com
Around 6,000 foreign medical graduates (FMGs), who clear the screening test annually, struggle to get internships, which are must for practising in India. On November 18 last year, the National Medical Commission (NMC) issued a notification that FMGs can do internships only in medical college hospitals and asked that these set aside 7. 5% (slashed from 10% earlier) internship seats for them.
NMC has also stipulated that FMGs have to complete the internship within two years of passing the screening test. The hardest hit are FMGs from Tamil Nadu because it accounts for the largest number of them clearing the screening test.
“There were just 230 seats available for internship in government colleges in Tamil Nadu while there were about 600 FMGs looking for a slot. Many of them have already lost five months in their desperate hunt for internship slots,” said Senthil Kumar, who did MBBS from Russia. Tamil Nadu chief minister had written to the NMC in January asking for FMGs from the state to be allowed to do internships in government hospitals and to simplify the process to make it easy for FMGs to join internship. There has been no response from the NMC. With extraordinary delays and uncertainty in NEET-PG exams and counselling in the last two years, thousands of medical graduates are trying to leave for the UK and a few hundreds for the US.
At the same time, annually over 20,000 FMGs appear for the screening tests held in June and December. The pass percentage is just around 20% for this notoriously difficult exam. FMGs have to be NEET-qualified to be issued eligibility certificates by the NMC to join a medical course abroad and once back they have to clear the screening test and then complete one-year compulsory internship, which Indian medical graduates do in their final year.
Some of the top medical colleges like AIIMS, JIPMER in Pondicherry and MAMC in Delhi do not allow FMGs to do internships in their hospitals. Delhi’s RML Hospital allows internships but the demand for a seat is immense with over 750 applicants for 230 seats. RML has so many internship seats available because it is a new medical college in which no batch has yet reached the final year. “FMGs are selected on the basis of interviews. But only those with high-level contacts, like children of bureaucrats, manage to get internship slots there,” alleged an FMG from Tamil Nadu who did medicine from Ukraine.
The maximum number of FMGs who clear the screening test are from Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. “Private medical colleges ask for large amounts of money to allow students to do internships and even government colleges take fee for internships. Now that NMC has said that they cannot charge for internships, maybe things will change in the government sector, but private colleges will not stop.
A private college had asked for Rs 22 lakh for a one-year internship, which is almost equivalent to what I spent on my entire medical education abroad. We already have education loans taken for studying abroad and so this is not a viable option. This forces students to look for slots in other states. There are very few FMGs from Odisha and so there are empty slots, but the language is a barrier when doing internship,” said an FMG still waiting to find an internship slot in Delhi. States like Maharashtra and Gujarat only allow FMGs from the state to do internships in their colleges. It takes FMGs about seven to eight years or more to become practising doctors — about six years to study MBBS abroad, one year to prepare for the screening test and clear it and then one year of internship, which could become two years or more if they don’t get a slot. Since 2002, when the screening test was introduced, 2. 6 lakh FMGs have appeared for it and over 51,400 have cleared it.
Foreign med grads struggle to get internships
Foreign med grads struggle to get internships
With a doctor shortage and thousands trained in India going abroad every year, you would think India would welcome the prospect of an annual addition of a few thousand of them. Yet, 3,000 to 6,000 foreign medical graduates (FMGs) who clear the screening test every year struggle to get internships, which are compulsory for them to be allowed to practice in India.
Earlier, FMGs were allowed to do internships in identified private hospitals, government hospitals and medical college hospitals. For instance, in Delhi, private hospitals like B L Kapur (BLK) and Gangaram and government hospitals including Deen Dayal Upadhyay, ESI Hospital and Northern Railway hospital would take interns.
But on November 18 last year, the National Medical Commission (NMC) issued a notification that FMGs can do internships only in medical college hospitals and asked that these set aside 7. 5% (slashed from 10% earlier) internship seats for them. NMC has also stipulated that FMGs have to complete the internship within two years of passing the screening test. The hardest hit are FMGs from Tamil Nadu because it accounts for the largest number of them clearing the screening test.
“There were just 230 seats available for internship in government colleges in Tamil Nadu while there were about 600 FMGs looking for a slot. Many of them have already lost five months in their desperate hunt for internship slots,” said Dr Senthil Kumar, who did MBBS from Russia.
Maximum foreign med grads to clear screening from Delhi, 3 other states
Around 6,000 foreign medical graduates (FMGs), who clear the screening test annually, struggle to get internships, which are must for practising in India. The Tamil Nadu chief minister had written to the NMC in January asking for FMGs from the state to be allowed to do internships in government hospitals and to simplify the process to make it easy for FMGs to join internship. There has been no response from the NMC. With extraordinary delays and uncertainty in NEET-PG exams and counselling in the last two years, thousands of medical graduates are trying to leave for the UK and a few hundreds for the US.
At the same time, annually over 20,000 FMGs appear for the screening tests held in June and December. The pass percentage is just around 20% for this notoriously difficult exam. FMGs have to be NEETqualified to be issued eligibility certificates by the NMC to join a medical course abroad and once back they have to clear the screening test and then complete one-year compulsory internship, which Indian medical graduates do in their final year.
Some of the top medical colleges like AIIMS, JIPMER in Pondicherry and MAMC in Delhi do not allow FMGs to do internships in their hospitals. Delhi’s RML Hospital allows internships but the demand for a seat is immense with over 750 applicants for 230 seats. RML has so many internship seats available because it is a new medical college in which no batch has yet reached the final year. “FMGs are selected on the basis of interviews. But only those with high-level contacts, like children of bureaucrats, manage to get internship slots there,” alleged an FMG from Tamil Nadu who did medicine from Ukraine.
The maximum number of FMGs who clear the screening test are from Delhi, Tamil Na- du, Karnataka and Kerala. “Private medical colleges ask for large amounts of money to allow students to do internships and even government colleges take fees for internships. Now that NMC has said that they cannot charge for internships, may be things will change in the government sector, but private colleges will not stop.
A private college had asked for Rs 22 lakh for a one year internship, which is almost equivalent to what I spent on my entire medical educa- tion abroad. We already have education loans taken for studying abroad and so this is not a viable option. This forces students to look for slots in other states. There are very few FMGs from Odisha and so there are empty slots, but the language is a barrier when doing internship,” said an FMG still waiting to find an internship slot in Delhi. States like Maharashtra and Gujarat only allow FMGs from the state to do internships in their colleges. It takes FMGs about seven to eight years or more to become practising doctors — about six years to study MBBS abroad, one year to prepare for the screening test and clear it and then one year of internship, which could become two years or more if they don't get a slot
Sunday, May 22, 2022
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Friday, May 20, 2022
Everybody Loves A Good Convict
Everybody Loves A Good Convict
Politics after Perarivalan’s freedom will see a more aggressive Tamil Nadu govt take on Centre on many issues
Arun.Ram@timesgroup.com
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin doesn’t hug just anyone. But then, AG Perarivalan is not just anyone. Hours after the Supreme Court ordered his release on Wednesday morning, the 50-year-old who spent 31 years in prison after being convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, travelled 200km to meet Stalin. The handshake, almost naturally, gave way to a hug.
Stalin called him ‘brother’. Perarivalan’s mother Arputhammal, who waged a three-decade battle to get her son back, looked on with moist eyes. For the family, it was an emotional closure. For Stalin, it was a political statement. It was Perarivalan’s first stop in his thanksgiving pilgrimage where Stalin, by today’s protocol, is the prime political deity in Tamil Nadu.
The free man then paid obeisance to former AIADMK chief ministers Edappadi K Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam. Next in line were PMK founder S Ramadoss, MDMK leader Vaiko and VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan. But why are politicians eagerly waiting for this visitor? For one, the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case – and more so Perarivalan’s struggle for freedom – has been a constant catalyst in Tamil Nadu politics and the state-Centre relationship for three decades. If politics is the art of the impossible, irony is the paintbrush.
So, Perarivalan’s release has come as a political shot in the arm for DMK 25 years after the Justice MC Jain commission report implicated the party and its leader M Karunanidhi for abetting Rajiv’s killers and LTTE at large. Expressing sympathy for the convicts has been a delicate task for the mainstream parties in Tamil Nadu as the underlying sense of Tamil nationalism posed them a political conundrum: It was too intangible to be made an electoral plank yet not too abstract to be ignored.
While some parties such as PMK, MDMK, VCK and later NTK that flaunt their Tamil nationalist agenda have been consistently in support of the convicts, the main Dravidian players – DMK and AIADMK – have blown hot and cold over the case to suit the changing political climate. Congress has been the sole exception in this game, but, because of it being an ally of either of the big two, its protests have often been muffled if not muted. Emerging unscathed from the aftermath of the Jain commission’s observations that threatened to shake the IK Gujral government which the DMK was part of, Karunanidhi found his feet. Two years after a TADA court sentenced the Rajiv case convicts to death, he chaired a cabinet meeting that recommended commutation of Nalini’s death sentence.
J Jayalalithaa, the successor of MGR (who was more sympathetic to LTTE than any other Tamil Nadu politician was), accused Karunanidhi of being anti-national. Less than a decade later, Jayalalithaa softened up and, in 2014, surprised everyone by declaring that she would order the release of all the convicts, whether the Centre gave its consent or not. On the same day, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan, Santhan and Murugan.
Jayalalithaa, however, couldn’t walk the talk as the UPA government moved the Supreme Court and stalled her move. Since then it has been a virtual competition between DMK and AIADMK to take credit for being the redeemer of the Rajiv assassination case convicts. In 2016, the Jayalalithaa government wrote to the Centre advocating the release of the seven convicts, a request that the Centre rejected. Just as the ‘human interest’ campaign for Perarivalan’s release gained momentum, the Edappadi government in 2018 invoked Article 161 of the Constitution and recommended to the governor to release the convicts.
Perarivalan’s release is a victory for these AIADMK efforts. Its cabinet recommendation to release the convicts was the basis for the judgment. After much protest over his sitting on the recommendation, the governor forwarded it to the President in January 2021. The Supreme Court’s judgment on Wednesday came down on the governor for not acting on the state cabinet’s advice, adding ammo to the DMK government which has been having a running feud with governor RN Ravi. Soon after meeting Perarivalan, Stalin said his government would take steps for the release of the remaining six convicts in the case. Recollecting that it was his election promise last year, he then sent out a bigger message to a larger audience:
“This is a victory for the whole of India, state autonomy and federalism . . . the judges have made it clear that the governor cannot interfere in the policies of the state government . . . While the judgment is historic on human rights and humanitarian grounds, it has also established the state’s rights in a majestic manner by the apex court. ” Translation: Expect more on not just the release of the remaining convicts, but the state government’s demands on NEET, NEP and other policies.
Perarivalan’s newfound freedom may be a reason for political celebration in Tamil Nadu, but let’s not forget that he has been released not for his innocence, but for the systemic delay. The other convicts in the case are sure to seek the same legal recourse, but the outcomes need not be the same. Till the apex court decides on their fate, the politics of Tamil sub-nationalism will have enough fuel for a sputtering run.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
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