‘Move to start regional centre at ESIC Med College Joka biased’

The National Medical Commission’s (NMC) decision to give approval to the ESI-PGIMSR & ESIC Medical College, Joka, to start a

Regional Centre for Medical Education Technology (RCMET) has triggered a controversy with a section of health department officials calling it a ‘bias’ decision as there are number of state-run medical colleges which could have been announced as the regional centre.

The ESI-PGIMSR & ESIC Medical College in Joka will be the first such training centre in Bengal. It will facilitate the training of medical college faculties. The approval came around three weeks after the commission had cancelled such an offer to College of Medicine and JNM Hospital Kalyani. Earlier, an MNC team had visited the ESI Joka and carried out an inspection to examine infrastructure issues.

The Union Health Ministry on Monday wrote to the ESI Joka on Monday announcing that it has been approved as RCMET. A senior health

department official said that there are many state run medical colleges in Kolkata with top facilities but none of them were selected. Teaching doctors from various state run and private medical colleges will be able to receive training offered by the NMC at the ESI Joka itself. They will no longer need

to go to other states for training after the training here at ESI Joka