No new PG med student in 2021
MUMBAI: Frustration, uncertainty and anguish describe the current state of the medical fraternity. With constant delays in admission due to rising Covid-19 cases and a series of petitions pending in different courts, the fraternity is left without one full batch of postgraduate (PG) medical students across the country.
What’s worse- the resident doctors currently pursuing second and third-year PG medical courses are shouldering the workload of three batches of resident doctors with the current strength of two batches- which has resulted in exhaustion and worsening mental health conditions.
The admissions which were meant to commence in February this year will now start sometime in January next year, which means, not a single first-year PG medical student joins the course in 2021.
Frustrated with the current state of affairs, resident doctors across several government and corporation run hospitals in the country have started protests and are demanding for admissions to begin at the earliest.
While both the central government as well as respective state governments are requesting the Supreme Court of India to speed up the hearing of the ongoing petitions, very little seems to be happening on the ground.
23-year-old Dr Ojas Tapse has been waiting for admissions to begin since January this year. “In the peak of the second wave, my batch was still preparing for final year MBBS exams and at the same time, we were also working extra hours in the Covid wards of the respective hospitals we were attached with. To continue our work, we had to seek admissions into a postgraduate course and while at first NEET-PG was delayed by nearly seven months and now delay in admissions is leaving us all frustrated,” said Tapse, one of the thousands of PG medical aspirants in Maharashtra affected by this delay.
Dr Shruti Pawar (24) cleared her MBBS in 2020 and used the last one year to complete her rural internship before applying for NEET-PG. “At a time when the country is witnessing the rise of a new Covid variant, the least that needs to be done is strengthening of the health care system and we need all hands-on deck. Yet here we are, waiting for admissions to begin so we can help,” said Pawar, adding, “Constant delay has left us lagging a year behind in our education and this means I will have to start repaying my loan even before I complete my post-graduation,” she added.
The National Eligibility-cumentrance Test (NEET-PG) 2021 exam which should take place in January was postponed to February
first, then April this year. It was eventually delayed indefinitely due to increasing cases of Covid-19.
“Nowhere else in the world has education been affected to this extent where an entire batch of PG medical students was not admitted due to Covid. Instead of focussing on hiring more doctors on board, our system has ensured that no medical student is admitted to the system in 2021,” said another first-year PG medical aspirant, on condition of anonymity.
Dr Pranav Jadhav, vice-president central Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) shared, “Currently, a plea has been issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as well as the union health minister has assured that the Prime Minister’s office is looking into this issue, we are hoping for a positive outcome within a week. There are at present nearly 50K PG medical aspirants waiting for counselling and considering the authorities should fast-track the admissions process to avoid burnout among the current batches of PG students.”