A staged pregnancy where an infant was placed in the labour room to look like a newborn; one student enrolled in three medical colleges in the same academic year; a college with 100% shortage of resident doctors; another hospital functioning without a medical superintendent — these are a few of the findings made by the Medical Council of India (MCI) during inspections starting March this year to grant recognition to medical colleges.
All the above mentioned medical colleges have now been given recognition by a Supreme Court-appointed oversight committee, headed by former Chief Justice of India Justice R.M. Lodha, formed to oversee the functioning of the MCI. The Lodha committee has put in abeyance the recommendations of the MCI inspections that found glaring shortages in many private medical colleges.
According to information accessed by The Hindu , the Justice Lodha Committee has granted recognition to two medical colleges — Saraswati Medical College in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, and Sakshi Medical College, Guna, MP — despite the hospitals themselves admitting that they had failed to address the deficiencies pointed out during an MCI inspection in March, and were, therefore, not ready for inspection.
In Panipat, NC Medical College had no medical superintendent, while Maheshwara Medical College in Andhra Pradesh had a 100 per cent shortage of resident doctors.
Further, three other colleges — Hi-Tech Medical College & Hospital, Rourkela; Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore and Dr. Somervell Memorial Mission Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram — were debarred after a two-year investigation by the MCI for putting up ‘ghost faculties.’ These three medical colleges have been granted permission over the last few days by the Lodha Committee to admit students for the academic year starting in September.
These cases have now become central to a petition filed by Vyapam whistleblower Dr. Anand Rai, challenging the decisions taken by the Justice Lodha Committee to grant permissions to new medical colleges without due diligence.
The court-appointed committee is facing flak for making it easier for private medical colleges to gain recognition, as the decision opens up 6000 MBBS seats, and 60 super-speciality seats in this academic session despite not having the capacity to teach. If the undertaking is found to be untrue in another round of inspections, the colleges will be derecognised for two years, meaning, a new batch of students cannot be admitted for two years, although this creates uncertainty about the future of students admitted to these colleges.
A day after filing the PIL, Dr. Rai said, “The Lodha Committee was formed to oversee the functioning of the MCI and not completely take over it. Further, without any physical verification of these colleges, the OC [oversight committee] has granted permissions based on the information provided on the websites of these colleges. The Lodha committee has been easy on private medical colleges by extending them the same privileges given to government medical colleges. Government colleges educate poor students at nominal fees, which is why the State extends them privileges. They cannot be compared to private colleges. I am challenging every recommendation made by the Lodha committee. If they want to completely overthrow the MCI, they will have to amend the Act in the Constitution before they do so.”
The Supreme Court appointed Justice Lodha in May 2016 after a Parliamentary Standing Committee report of March 2016 noted that medical education and profession in the country was at its “lowest ebb” and suffering from “total system failure” due to corruption and decay within MCI. The apex court had constituted a three-member committee, headed by Justice Lodha, to oversee the functioning of the MCI for at least a year.
‘Strict norms in place’
Stating that the committee had imposed stringent conditions while granting recognition, Justice Lodha said that their decisions were in the best interest of medical education in the country.
“We have strictly discharged the mandate given by the Supreme Court. We had directed the MCI to undertake physical verification of these colleges but, unfortunately, they did not do it. They thought OC’s directions were not binding despite a clear order from the court that the OC will oversee their functioning. Our order is self-explanatory. It is premature to assume that students’ academic career will be affected. We have put stringent conditions like bank guarantee and undertakings from Dean etc while granting recognition and these will compel the colleges to make up the deficiencies. We have tried to make more seats available and we have done what we thought was best for medical education in the country,” said Justice Lodha.
Between July 15-22, 2016, the OC had received 92 applications for new medical colleges, increase in seats and renewal of permission and another 37 applications for introduction of new super-speciality courses in the existing medical colleges.
Dr. Samiran Nundy, Dean of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SRGH) and one of the leading advocates of reforms in medical education in India, said that it was curious that the permissions were granted without inspections.
“I am a little surprised that the Lodha committee has gone against the MCI’s recommendations. The committee just has three people. How could they have inspected these many colleges in such a short time? The argument that we are short of doctors and must hence recognise as many colleges as soon as we can is seriously flawed. If we go by that argument, we will get doctors of inferior quality,” he told The Hindu .
