A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare visited the Coimbatore Medical College as well as the Hospital on Monday. Comprising members from both houses of Parliament, the committee is tasked with examining the functioning of the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the Indian Nursing Council.
Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan, Director of Medical Education S. Geethalakshmi, District Collector Archana Patnaik, Hospital Dean A. Edwin Joe and Deputy Director of Health Services S. Somasundaram accompanied the committee members.
The committee members inspected the recently-constructed Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (CEMONC) centre and interacted with doctors and patients.
Committee member M.K. Raghavan, a Congress MP representing Kozhikode, told journalists that they sought to ascertain the grievances of patients and the infrastructure requirements of the doctors. Tamil Nadu was next only to Kerala nationally in terms of healthcare infrastructure and performance.
Seats
Mr. Radhakrishnan said that the committee had been apprised of the CMC requirements to meet the MCI norms for increasing its MBBS seats capacity.
The college had 150 seats at present and had proposed to increase it to 250, but was turned down by MCI which pointed out several lacunae in staff and infrastructure.
While the committee comprised 31 MPs, only six took part in the inspection. Several others including its Chairman Satish Chandra Misra met the hospital officials during the inspection of a private homeopathy medical college and hospital in the city.
