Govt to rope in medical students for Covid-19 care

NEW DELHI:

A review committee chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday decided to deploy medical interns on Covid-19 management duties under the supervision of their faculty, as part of their internship. The committee also decided to vaccinate medical students and professionals engaged in such duties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the growing need for adequate human resource in responding to the pandemic and took a slew of decisions that will boost the availability of medical personnel. The review meeting also decided to postpone NEET-PG for at least four months; the committee said the exam will not be held before August 31. Candidates will be

THE COVID REVIEW COMMITTEE CHAIRED BY THE PM HAS DECIDED TO POSTPONE NEET-PG FOR AT LEAST 4 MONTHS

given at least a month’s notice before the exams are held. This decision has been taken in the hope that this will make available a large number of qualified doctors for Covid duties.

In a bid to further augment the manpower to fight the pandemic, the government said services of final year MBBS students can be utilised for providing services like tele-consultation and monitoring of mild Covid cases after due orientation by faculty. “This will reduce the workload on existing doctors engaged in Covid duty and provide boost to efforts of triaging,” a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The committee also said that all health professionals who are engaged in Covid-related duties will be covered under the Insurance Scheme of Government for health workers.

Those medical personnel completing 100 days of Covid duties will be given the Prime Minister’s Distinguished Covid National Service Samman from and will also be given priority in forthcoming regular government recruitments.