Cure for systemic `ills’ assured

The approvals of the Talegaon college and D Y Patil Women’s college, Pimpri have not been renewed. These colleges have admitted students in 1997 despite being told not to. If the admissions are not cancelled, we will instruct the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) not to register these graduates.

* What has the MCI done to check the blatant pre-inspection coverups carried out by private medical colleges?

Upcoming private colleges have at least realised that the days of lax rulings are over. We usually inspect colleges without prior intimation. If colleges are informed, then surprise inspections are carried out again.

* The present problem of ill-equipped medical colleges has been created due to the unbridled sanctioning of such colleges in the eighties. What is the present MCI’s policy on approvin new medical colleges?

The MCI has not accepted the Planning Commissions’ instructions on not permitting new colleges. We will sanction a college if it has the infrastructure for quality education. Since I took over as MCI president, only two new medical colleges have been started.

* Although the MCI has ordered Terna medical college to stop admissions this year, the MMC recently registered a batch of the Terna medical college on `humanitarian grounds’ under Schedule 3 of the MMC act. Shouldn’t such situations, where an ill-equipped institution is favourably considered in the light of the students’ future, be avoided?

Prior to medical college admissions, the MCI had issued an advertisement listing all the recognised medical colleges in the country. This was printed in all the editions of a national English newspaper. Despite this, if students take admission in unrecognised colleges, the MCI is not responsible for their future.

* The MCI and the IMA have vociferously opposed the proposed short course for non-allopathic doctors. But non-allopaths form the backbone of rural health care in India. Allopaths refuse to venture out of the cities. How can this problem be solved?

One solution is to create an excess of doctors. We shouldn’t worry about competition as no doctor has had to close shop yet. When there are too many doctors, they will begin percolating to smaller cities, talukas and eventually villages.

* What is being done about the bureaucratic functioning of the Medical Education and Public Health departments of the state government which seriously affects the efficiency of government medical institutions?

Secretaries of Medical Education and Public Health should be doctors. Only then will babus in Mantralaya respect doctors’ needs. The MCI has already recommended to the central government that medical superintendents attached to hospitals be postgraduate doctors , not IAS officials.