Authorities wake up to save 50 MBBS seats

Gagan K Teja

Tribune News Service

Patiala, December 16

The state Medical Education and Research authorities have finally swung into action to save 50 MBBS seats in Government Medical College, Patiala, that were increased in the 2014-15 session. The Medical Council of India (MCI) had recommended their cancellation. 

The department is now holding departmental promotion committee (DPC) meetings and is also planning to hold fresh recruitment in the coming month, hoping to keep their seats intact.

This is not the first time that the authorities have been warned against the cancellation of these seats mainly due to faculty shortage. 

The college had been running with 150 MBBS seats since 1969. These were increased to 200 in 2014 on the condition that there will be annual inspections to see whether the college is capable of accommodating the increased strength.

In the very first inspection in April 2015, the MCI recommended cancellation of these 50 seats due to various anomalies, mainly 13 per cent faculty shortage. The college authorities pleaded their case and the college was allowed to continue with the increased seats.

However, the Medical Education Department did not learn any lesson from it and the faculty position went from bad to worse in one year. 

The authorities claim that they tried to fill the vacant posts, but did not succeed due to multiple reasons including non-availability of competent doctors, delay in DPCs and some legal hitches.

Now, the faculty shortage is 16.4 per cent. It is expected to reach 35 per cent by March 2017 if the government does not make timely efforts to fill these posts.

A senior faculty member, requesting anonymity, said that for MBBS seats, the shortage is at the senior resident, assistant professor and associate professors levels. It could be rectified just by doing time-bound promotions as not many professors are required for the MBBS seats as per the MCI.

She alleged that the government was doing the wrong thing by filling seats through re-employment of retired professors. It is not only hindering the new recruitment of assistant professors but also promotions of associate professors to professors.

Accepting that the college had been grappling with staff shortage for long, Vikas Partap, secretary, Medical Education, said the department was taking some quick steps to rectify the shortcomings. He was hopeful that the MCI would reconsider its decision. 

“We held a DPC today. We are also planning to review another DPC which was conducted in June but had to be stalled due to some objections. Also, we have recently held interviews for super specialists and are planning to hold interviews for fresh recruitment soon,” he said.