Severe disability now no hurdle in medical studies

BREAKING BARRIER MCI’S decision to implement revised law will open doors for students with conditions such as blindness, sclerosis

NEWDELHI: Physical disability will no longer be grounds to prevent a person from becoming a doctor, bringing the curtain down on a two-decade-long battle between specially-abled students and India’s medical studies regulator.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) will now allow 21 categories of even severely disabled candidates to take next year’s graduate and post-graduate medical courses, a landmark shift in its policy after a severe stricture from the apex court in August.

These include blindness, lowvision, hearing impairment, locomotor disability, dwarfism, intellectual disability, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy.

MCI secretary Reena Nayyar told Hindustan Times that a decision was made at the council’s general body meeting on October 31 to implement in toto the country’s newly revised disability law.

“The ministry of social justice and empowerment is in the process of framing rules to specify medical job roles for different categories of disability,” she said.

Until now, the MCI allowed only candidates with below 70% disability of the lower limbs to study medicine, although the condition contravened all disability-related laws in the country, forcing such students to wage