3 Bihar Medical Colleges to have 21 super specialty departments by 2019

Patna: The year 2019 will see 21 super specialty departments come into operations in three of the nine government run medical colleges of Bihar. This project has been jointly consented to, by both the centre and the state governments.

The three colleges shortlisted for the purpose are: Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH), Patna, the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital (JLNMCH), Bhagalpur, and Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College (ANMMCH), Gaya.

A 60/40 funded centre , state ratio made applicable, each of these colleges is to be given Rs.200 crore for their respective projects.

While super specialization in Cardiology will be common to the ANMMCH and JLNMCH, Neonatology (treatment of newborns) will be common to the PMCH and ANMMCH. This distribution decision was taken at a gap analysis meeting convened by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW), in New Delhi on March 10, 2017.

The project also entails, the Centre constructing a building to house these departments and provide state-of-the-art equipment. The state government’s role in it will be to provide space and ensure paramedical and faculty manpower. Each of these departments will have 20 beds.

The Officer-on-Special Duty, Department of Health, Dr Ranjit Kumar, who represented the state government at the meeting, told HT, “The central government has to do the physical work, while we have to provide manpower support and space.”

The Centre before commencing work on the project of floating tenders for construction in April, has sought the state government’s consent for partial funding of the project; besides allotting space and dedicating manpower. The completion deadline for the project is December 2018.

Medical Colleges will be equipped to apply for two seats of DM (doctor of medicine) or M.Ch (Magister Chirurgiae, which is master of surgery degree), as the case may be, depending on the discipline, once the super specialty departments become functional.

The apex education regulator, prescribes a minimum of 20 in-patient beds, a minimum faculty strength of a professor and an associate professor each, and two assistant professors to all super specialty courses; with an annual intake of two medicos as well.