Medical Education Minister, Sharan Prakash Patil has termed the decision of the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) to exit from the field of medical education and discontinue the admission to the medical, dental, nursing colleges and para-medical institutes from ensuing academic year as “ridiculous, retrograde and illogical” decision.
“It is shocking that when the State government was making more effort to open new medical colleges to open up avenues of medical education to the deprived sections, the Central government had taken a unilateral decision without consulting the stake-holders including the State government to exit from the field of medical education”.
Talking to The Hindu in Kalaburagi on Sunday, Dr. Patil said that this would have a long term impact on the poorer sections of the society. Medical and post-graduate education at affordable cost would go down the drain. Seats under the government quota providing subsidised fees in the UG and PG medical and dental colleges would come down.
He said that the quota created in the medical, dental and nursing colleges run by the ESIC for the Insured Person (IP) would now be eliminated and the these children hailing from poor and middle class families cannot have any hope of getting medical or dental education.
Dr. Patil said that he failed to understand the rationale behind this decision of the union labour ministry and ESIC and said that this would have an impact on the quality of the service provided in the ESIC hospitals attached to the ESIC Medical Colleges and Post Graduate Institutes.
He said that the quality of the treatment in the ESIC hospitals attached to the medical colleges have always remained best due to the availability of specialists in all disciplines and the IP members and their family received one of the best treatment facilities for different ailment and “now this has been taken away due to the irrational decision of the ESIC and the Union Labour Ministry”.
