Govt orders reopening of its medical colleges
New Delhi: Medical Colleges under the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi are set to be re-opened with immediate effect, as per an order by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, issued on Wednesday.
After assessing the reduction in the number of COVID-19 cases reported in Delhi, the Delhi government has now ordered its teaching hospitals and medical colleges to resume normal functioning, with proper social distancing and COVID-19 SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) in place.
The order states that in the first instance, First-year MBBS and BDS students will be called in a staggered manner. Teaching and Practical will be completed within a period of 1.5 to 2 months from the date of reopening of the college.
Subsequently, final year students will be allowed to join college. Final year students will be eligible to appear in final year annual exams upon successfully completing their training. After clearing the exam, they will be eligible to join as interns. Thereafter Second-year MBBS/BDS students will be allowed to rejoin.
Residents and medical students at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital, the largest teaching hospital under the Delhi Government (attached to Maulana Azad Medical College) with over 2,000 beds,
had been making repeated appeals to the government to resume non-COVID-19 services because it interfered with their clinical and surgical training.
LNJP's Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) welcomed the development, saying that students had been suffering a lot because they were exclusively attending to COVID-19 patients for the past 10 months. "That is almost a year of no practical training even though online classes are going on," Dr Keshav Singh, LNJP's RDA President said.
Dr Anjali, a 2nd year Post Graduate student at Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), specialising in General Surgery said that while the college reopening is undoubtedly good news, it would be better if emergency and in-patient services were resumed as well.
"For training, we require that Operation Theatre, In-patient admissions and Emergency Services are also resumed. Currently, only OPD services have resumed that too in a limited manner. Two-thirds of the staff is still looking after COVID-19 cases. Only one-third of us are being posted for non-COVID-19 duty (on a rotational basis) and all emergency/ admission patients are transferred to other hospitals," she said.
Ajay Puthalp, a final year Undergraduate MBBS student at MAMC said that resumption of OPD services would provide at least some practical exposure. However, several students who had gone back home during the lockdown and have been attending online classes are in a difficult situation because parents do not want to send them back for clinical rounds, fearing for their safety, he said.
