Kerala: Medicos raise objections against MCI recommendation of Pvt colleges

Kerala: State medicos here have expressed their concern over a matter recommended by MCI recently.

In the said matter, MCI has suggested that in order to have more district level medical colleges, private medical colleges be allowed to affiliate with government-run hospitals and health care facilities in the vicinity.

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However, the medicos in the state have shared their anguish on the matter stating that such a scenario will only lead to mushrooming of many private medical colleges here; which also means that they will be taking huge amounts of capitation fee.

Reiterating their point, they also said that a state-wide medical manpower assessment be done before such recommendations are made. In their view, states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, already have good institutions and sufficient manpower, and as such, would not really benefit towards any such step. IMA state president Dr A V Jayakrishnan has also echoed the same sentiment.

Meanwhile, Travancore Cochin Medical Council member Dr Sreejith N Kumar also implied that in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, the shortage of doctors needs to be addressed, and therefore, such recommendations by MCI will deliver more graduates here. It should be clearly need based. In states where there is a surplus of doctors it will only lead to many irregularities. However, he stated that it was dilution of the existing standards.

As reported by Express, most of the doctors allege that the MCI was only trying to help medical college lobbies by giving them readymade hospital infrastructure and allowing them to collect huge amounts. They said that private institutions, which collect huge amounts as donations and capitation fee, would get their students graduated at the expense of public money.