In India there are 303 medical colleges teaching MBBS. Out of these, 25 are permitted meaning that these medical colleges are new and getting permission for each year till the first batch of students pass out after 4 and a half year and these colleges become fully recognized. 63 colleges are listed as refused permission or in the process of being permitted, thus indicating there are deficiencies pointed out by the inspection teams.
This indicates that 29 % (88) of medical colleges in India are less than 4 and a half year in the making! There may be another 30% or so which would have come up in the last 10 years; I have not been able to locate a source for this but 30 % seems to be a fair guess.That may indicate that over 50% of the medical colleges in the country may have come up in the last decade.
It is an impressive figure to boast of indicating a robust growth in the medical education of our country. Today, this figure has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Reading in press about the various irregularities in granting permission to new medical colleges in India, it may be that quite a few of these new colleges may be below par in respect to staff, infrastructure, equipment, patient loads in the connected hospitals and the quality of education provided to the students enrolled.
It is prudent to check the antecedents of these colleges, keeping in mind that the current inspection system by MCI may be wanting because of corruption, nepotism and mediocrity. It may be so that a few of these or a majority of these new medical colleges may be adequate and doing a good job.But a recheck is mandatory.
The state of medical education is same as rest of the nation where corruption and short sighted view rules and nobody is concerned about what happens to the country in the long run and our posterity
ReplyDeleteJaspal
The impact of the corruption in the Medical Council of India goes beyond raising funds illegally. It has resulted in the poisoning of an entire health care system meant to ensure people’s right to health and to survival. The health care system depends on a caring, well trained and ethical health care provider. Having paid a bribe of 25 lakhs to enter the MBBS course and another 70 lakhs for postgraduate medical education plus the yearly tuition and hostel fees amounting to nearly 5 lakhs a year, a medical graduate from a private medical college would have spent more one and half crores by the time he qualifies as specialist. Being trained in a value system which runs on illegal gratification, and faced with the burden of having to recover the investment made on him, the young medical specialist has no option but to fall in line with an immorally commercialised health care system, where unnecessary procedures/surgeries, investigations have to be done and an irrational collection of drugs have to be prescribed. . He would resist any compulsion to work in a rural hospital, where there are desperate shortages of medical doctors. It comes as no surprise that the greater part of this country’s population which consists of rural and urban poor, has no access to a half decent standard of health care.. With more 60% of medical colleges in India being private the significant proportion of India’s health care system is in the grip of the MCI vice and the human cost of this organised criminal activity is incalculable.
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