Kochi: The Ernakulam Government Medical College here has been forced to discontinue its MD (general medicine) course as it failed to secure the Medical Council of India (MCI) recognition for it, five years after starting the course.
There were three seats for the course, and MCI had given the letter of permission for starting the course in 2014 subject to the condition that the college will fulfil the criteria for running the course at the time of the inspection.
However, when the MCI which inspected the facility in 2017 found the college failed to satisfy it. The shortage was on faculty. There was a deficit of one associate professor and three assistant professors and the college has so far failed to fill.
The issue escalated after the college decided admit students for the course last year as well. The students who passed from the institution in the first batch approached the Kerala High Court against the denial of recognition to their degree by MCI.
The court ordered the college a few months ago not to run the course till it got MCI recognition following which EMC decided to discontinue the course from this year.
“Post creation has to take place for appointing the four faculties in the general medicine department. We had approached the government and the senior officials in the health department for getting the posts sanctioned,” said Dr V. K. Sreekala, the principal of the medical college when DC sought her reaction.
She said that 71 posts have to be created in the medical college overall.
The principal said that at present there are two professors, two associate professors and four assistant professors in the general medicine department.
Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer Movement on Tuesday shot off a letter to the chief minister and health minister for immediate steps to address the issue. “PG students are an asset to any medical college, and they can help in treating patients and in a medical college like
EMC where a lot of patients come, PG General Medicine department should function,” said Dr N.K. Sanil Kumar, leader of the movement.
