Privatization of medical education and its worst effects

Privatization of medical education and its worst effects:
Mushrooming of private medical colleges in India and severe shortage of medical faculty on one side and enormous profit motive on the part of private management leads to ruin quality of medical education in India.

The Hon’ble HC Observed:
“……..The petitioner has alleged in this writ petition that the private Medical and Dental Colleges in the State of Madhya Pradesh do not have the required faculty members on their permanent rolls. We direct that the Medical Council of India, the respondent No.1 and the Dental Council of India, the respondent No. 3 will carry out the inspection of all the private medical and dental Colleges in the State of Madhya Pradesh and report this Court whether the teaching staff has been permanently employed by the private Medical and Dental Colleges in the State of Madhya Pradesh, or such teaching staff has only been shown in the rolls of these Colleges for purposes of permission or recognition. Court has given directions for the inspection to be carried out by the MCI and report be submitted by 05.01.2009”.

To verify the teaching faculty, residents and clinical material - Pursuant to order of Hon'ble M.P. High Court MCI conducted Inspection on 2nd January, 2009, of four private medical colleges.

they observed -

the shortage of teaching faculty was about 60% and that of Residents were 65% .
Clinical material was grossly inadequate as reported by the MCI inspectors. O.P.D. attendance was 20% ;Bed occupancy was 30% as against 80% as per MCI norms Minimum Requirements.

Fake faculty:
It was found that the doctors presented as Tutors,asst.professors were not doctors. However, they signed the declaration certificate that they were working full time . On questioning, they revealed that they are not doctors.
Recently, The Tribune, a leading news paper from Punjab in its editorial dated March 7, 2009 has reported “the shocking revelation that some Punjab government doctors have been engaging in scandalous moonlighting in private medical institutes deserves severe condemnation.

A Tribune investigation lists half-a-dozen government doctors simultaneously figuring on the rolls of private medical colleges in southern India which they have been visiting for monetary benefit during mandatory head count inspections by the Medical Council of India, an apex body entrusted with maintaining uniform standards of medical education in the country”.

The Editorial further added that “the figure of six doctors is more likely to be suggestive of many more doctors engaged in a similar exercise from just not only Punjab but perhaps from other states as well. This corruption by manipulation and moonlighting is the latest by government doctors, many of whom are since long known to engage in activities of private practice.

Regarding the stand of MCI it mentioned that “Even more strange is the display of indifference by the MCI, which has ruled out any action saying that they accept at face value a written list of doctors submitted by the medical colleges who are privy to the racket. The MCI seems to overlook the fact that only last year they had threatened to de-recognise the three government medical colleges in Punjab partly because of similar manipulation of manpower after 23 faculty members from Amritsar and Fardikot were detected of being posted to the Government Rajindra Hospital in Patiala on the date of inspection and then reverted to their parent institutions when they faced similar inspection a month later”.

If timely actions by all concerned authorities including common man and parents of students studying in these medical colleges are not taken, right to quality of heath care in India may be a distant dream for all of us.

Many cases related to infrastructural deficiencies are pending in the various high courts of the country and even in the Apex Court of India, waiting for their fate of fighting for a right cause till date.

Exploitation of Medical Teachers in India
The members of the ad hoc committee appointed by the Supreme Court and of the executive committee of the MCI decided to prepare RFID based Access Control Smart ID Cards for the faculties of medical colleges to check the problem of double employment in a single academic year.

However, few Medical College’s Management are still not opting for preparing Smart Cards of their faculty members so that they can avoid detection of unqualified and one-time faculty members coming only for MCI Inspection.
Management of many Private Medical Colleges are taking advantage of the situation and even, after receiving Smart ID Cards, from the concerned agency, not issuing them to the concerned teaching faculty members. Thus, they can be illegally retained for next inspection.

That the newly appointed faculty members are not even given appointment letters, not relieved even after competing notice period, not given experience certificates. These are some of the instances of the exploitation of faculty members at the hands of management of private medical colleges, by bye-passing all the rules and regulations of affiliating university.
The implications of MCI directive asking all faculty members to file their biographical details including the particulars of their post-graduate degrees for ID Smart Card means a disaster for the doctors who have passed out from unrecognised departments of MEDICAL COLLEGES.

This card will have the photo of the individual, degrees obtained by him, signature of the individual and faculty number in that specialty allotted by MCI duly signed by the authority of MCI. It is claimed that the main objective of issuing such cards, noted by MCI, is to “avoid teachers with unrecognised postgraduate qualification getting employed as teachers and help the MCI inspectors to check and verify whether the teachers are really qualified teachers from a recognised medical college.”

We have great belief and hope on the higher judiciary, to come forward to protect most needy fundamental right i.e. Right to life and quality of health care.

Media ,one of the important pillars of democracy can also play its much awaited leading role in exposing these illegal and unethical practices.