Odisha: MKCG medical college to offer 250 MBBS seats

Odisha: The only GMC in South part of the state, the MKCG medical college will now offer 250 MBBS seats, adding 100 additional seats to the 150 seats offered earlier at the institute. The medical college dean and principal Arun Kumar Dandapat has confirmed the news that 250 students would be admitted in first year MBBS course of this institute.

The principal also implied that the Odisha heath department has been informed by the heath ministry on this recent development on June 9.

After receiving an approval from MCI on June 6, the state government also gave an approval to the medical college to increase its MBBS offerings.

The Union government has issued letter to the State government in this regard and central team of the Medical Council of India (MCI) had visited the medical college and hospital last May.

Earlier in 2015, the state government had decided to increase the MBBS seats in MKCG medical college. After MCI was approached on the matter, the inspection team of the council visited the premise of the government institute in November.

As per the directives of the MCI team, extra infrastructure was added up to the existing medical college campus and in May this year a four-member MCI team had again visited the medical college to inspect. "As the MCI was satisfied with the escalation of infrastructure here, permission was granted to increase intake strength," said Prof. Dandapat to Hindu.

Now, preparations are underway to accommodate more students, with the reported increase in intake. The medical college principal implied that as one of the step in this positive direction, the goods and books are being transferred to the recently established central library. These books are being shifted from the old library set up.

The medical college was also in the news recently for its trauma centre. MKCG centre is not yet functional, even though the building was constructed in March, 2009. Sources have implied that there is staff shortage, including doctors and paramedical staff. This has led to a situation of accident victims being rushed to other locations. In such situations, patients are usually taken to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh or to Bhubaneswar.

Following the recent fire accident at SCB medical college and hospital, the Orrisa High Court has also asked the state government to set up fire stations at three medical colleges, including MKCG,

A division bench of Justices I Mahanty and S K Sahoo ordered setting up of a fire sub-station on SCB premises. "Similar sub-stations will be set up in the other two medical colleges and hospital, MKCG in Berhampur and VIMSAR in Burla, and the district headquarters hospitals in a phased manner in accordance with the court's order," said advocate general S P Misra to TOI.