Five years after the government takeover of the medical college in Ernakulam, the integration process continues to stagnate at various levels.
The employees are uncertain what their status at the institution would be from December 17 this year.
At the time of takeover from the Cooperative Academy of Professional Education under the Ministry of Cooperation in 2013, the medical college was understood to stand alone for five years till the integration process was completed.
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Staff integration
The medical college authorities have confirmed that so far only about 40% of the staff has been integrated. But, the government is yet to fix the pay of the employees integrated into the Directorate of Medical Education and are yet to provide a pay scale.
At every step of an agitation, the government had promised to get things done at a faster pace and had announced various allowances, but without fixing the pay scale the allowances were never fully disbursed, said the employees.
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According to insiders, the Ministry of Health, the Department of Medical Education and the medical college authorities had never worked in tandem to sort out the issues faced by the medical college.
One of the issues that bothered the department was the protection of seniority of the faculty who had worked in the medical college prior to the government takeover.
While quite a few members of the faculty had quit the medical college on those grounds, others who had stayed back are now fighting to protect their pay.
PG courses
The postgraduate programmes at the medical college in five departments – medicine, psychiatry, paediatrics, microbiology and pathology — are also uncertain of getting recognition from the Medical Council of India.
The college authorities have not filed a compliance report for medicine and psychiatry as the lack of MRI scanning facility was a major drawback.
The Union Health Ministry has not sent any report yet on the recognition for PG courses.
Even as two batches of postgraduate students have graduated from the college, recognition to their postgraduate degrees continue to be in jeopardy.
KIIFB funds
New construction had begun at the medical college this year with funding from the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB). But, except for the Ardhram project, towards which ₹3.4 crore was sanctioned and a cathlab for the cardiology department, for which ₹8 crore was provided for equipment, rest of the ₹368.74-crore KIIFB projects have not made much progress.
The completion of the Ardhram project and the cathlab is likely to be delayed up to March, against the earlier January 2019 deadline. The imaging centre to come up at a cost of ₹25 crore is likely to be ready by March as it will be housed in the block which was earlier a pay ward.
Renovation work worth ₹4.8 crore in the medical college wards, intensive care units and operation theatres has been on for more than a year.