Maharashtra must answer for medical seat shortfall

Mumbai: The doctors' strike that laid Mumbai low recently has brought the Maharashtra government face-to-face with an unexpected side effect - a public interest litigation (PIL).
"The situation is grim as there is already a shortage of specialists across the state, particularly in rural areas, besides a 40-70 per cent reduction in teaching staff," says Dr I.S. Gilada of the People's Health Organisation (PHO) which has filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court citing the government's apathy towards public health and the welfare of medical students.
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It may be recalled that doctors, undergraduate students and interns attached to the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors had resorted to an agitation from April 12 to 20 in protest against the sharp fall in available postgraduate (PG) seats - from 1,906 in 2001 to 411 in 2008 - as a result of derecognition by the Medical Council of India (MCI).
The PIL filed through advocate Ajay Panicker will come up for hearing in the high court this week. "The state's arbitrary decision through a letter dated April 4, 2008 to curtail medical PG seats to as low as 22 per cent of what was offered in 2001, using the excuse of de-recognition by the MCI shows its disinterest in this crucial area of public healthcare," Gilada said.
It is shocking that 39 post-graduate and 24 diploma courses taught in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur, Miraj, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Ambajogai, which were started before 1992, have still not been recognised. Eleven degree courses at Yavatmal and Nanded, also started before 1992 are still pending recognition. The government has urged the MCI to accord recognition to all PG courses started before 1992 in one go but the MCI has rejected the plea and has sought applications for recognition before March 31, 2008.
Whilst the MCI insists that it follows due procedure before according recognition, government institutes say it is prejudiced towards private institutions and universities, the PIL states. Gilada wonders if there is an ulterior motive for the government to take a lackadaisical position in the matter since "there are seven sitting ministers who run their own medical colleges in the state. The reserved seats (for various backward castes and communities) are also paid for by the government".
"If the infrastructure, patient-load and teaching staff in the state's medical colleges were adequate for 1,906 seats in 2001, it is difficult to understand why it has gone down by almost 80 per cent in this so-called progressive state," he pointed out.
By Pamela Raghunath, CorrespondentPublished: April 29, 2008, 00:00
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