: Redeploying the teaching faculty from existing medical colleges to new medical colleges would affect the number of postgraduation seats. Moving one professor would mean loss of two postgraduate seats, K. Mohanan, president of the Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association, told The Hindu .
Earlier, only one student was allowed to be guided by one professor, but the Medical Council of India has since relaxed the norms. Medical colleges in the State would have lost 200-odd postgraduate seats if the Medical Council of India (MCI) had stuck to the norms.
One-time exemption
On the Union Health Ministry’s advice, the MCI had decided to give a one-time exemption to government medical colleges that faced shortage of staff. Another set of inspections will now decide the fate of PG seats.
The association has already pointed out the high patient load in all medical colleges, especially the Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode medical colleges where the number of beds is 2,800 each. The government has pointed out excess staff in the existing medical colleges to redeploy the faculty to new colleges.
The MCI decides the minimum requirement of teaching staff according to the number of MBBS seats and not the number of beds, Dr. Mohanan said.
For large hospitals, cutting down on the numbers of doctors would certainly affect patient care.
The State government, which aims at having a medical college in each district and has already begun the Manjeri medical college last year and Idukki medical college this year, is on a sticky wicket due to lack of faculty to be posted in these colleges .
The move to redeploy the faculty from the five medical colleges in the State has met with stiff resistance from teachers, who are on a non-co-operation stir.
