Click to play videoNew Delhi: About 24,000 medical students in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are planning a massive agitation against the Union government’s move to increase the duration of the MBBS course. The extension of the course includes a one-year compulsory rural service.
Medical students in Maharashtra have been protesting for nearly a month and on Monday the Tamil Nadu Medical Students Association will join them in Mumbai.
Around 3,500 students in Mumbai, from nine medical colleges, have been boycotting classes since Friday. The students, who are opposing Health Minister A Ramadoss' proposal, say the extra year will make an MBBS course for six years and this will take students 12 years to finish their training including super specialisation.
The agitating doctors also say that rural hospitals are not equipped enough to afford them a satisfactory practice.
"If government doesn’t have infrastructure at municipal and basic levels how is it saying that infrastructure is waiting for us there,” member of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, Dr Vasant said.
The students and medical interns ignored the state government’s warning that they would not be allowed to appear in their examination if they went on strike.
Meanwhile, the Government is expected to table the Bill in the ongoing session of Parliament.
Currently, medical students have to go through a one-year internship, which includes three months of rural posting. While pointing out that MBBS was already a very long course, students said they were not against a rural posting, but the extension of an already lengthy professional programme.
Students also complain that the extension of the course will result in financial problems for those who have taken educational loans.
“Most students are from the lower socio-economic classes so they are studying on educational loans. If the course is extended by a year it'll mean they'll have to pay more interest on it,” an MBBS student VA Sharon said.
Another point of concern for the doctors is that if the rule comes into place, rural health services would suffer, and doctors would be eventually replaced by trainees.
“Doctors in rural areas are paid Rs 18,000 a month while trainees will get Rs 8,000. We are worried that the government will increase the number of trainees and slowly remove permanent doctors from rural areas as it is cheaper for them,” another MBBS Student Vikram Vignesh said.
The rural posting is one of the recommendations made by a task force under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) headed by Ramadoss to address the shortage of doctors in villages. A high-level committee touring 12 states visited Mumbai’s JJ Hospital last week to seek the opinion of doctors on the proposal.
However, medical services in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have not been affected, as interns do not actively work in hospitals.
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