‘Made wrong choice’: ESIC Medical College students protest over lack of drinking water, facilities

First-year MBBS students at ESIC Medical College in Noida have staged protests against the college administration over the lack of basic infrastructure and poor facilities, including non air-conditioned lecture halls, and unclean drinking water. An entire batch of around 50 medical students has urged the institution to take “immediate” action on their demands, Medical Dialogues reported.

Students also stated that laboratories for projects on physiology and biochemistry were partially-equipped, making an hindrance for the first-year MBBS students in their medical training, the report said.

Suspecting that the medical college has been established in a “hurry” without equipping it with essential equipment and basic facilities , the report quoted a student as saying: "We started our classes in Sept and did not feel the heat until summer commenced. Now, in April, when the temperature is above 40 degrees Celsius, it has become suffocating for us. We start feeling dizzy and claustrophobic within an hour. Sitting continuously for seven to eight hours in such conditions is simply not possible. Some of us have even felt on the verge of fainting during lectures."

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'Paying Rs 1.25 lakh for nothing?' ask MBBS students

Another student claimed that lecture halls have only five to six wall fans that hardly work and said that it feels suffocated during six to nine hours of lecture, the report added.

Harnam Kaur, dean of ESIC Medical College, on the other hand, said in the report that the issue flagged by the MBBS first-year students was not anything “major”.

“The academic block we are currently using is part of the old OPD building, where there was no provision for central air-conditioning. We have already initiated the process to install split ACs, and a fresh tender has now been opened. We expect the installation to be completed within a week to ten days,” Kaur added in the report.

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"Temporary arrangements have already been made to ensure classes are not disrupted. We have shifted students to our seven-storey ward building, which is centrally air-conditioned, and have arranged proper teaching facilities there, including projectors and seating. All laboratories are fully functional, and drinking water facilities are available,” she said.

Moreover, students have also raised concerns about the lack of clean drinking water on campus. They claimed that they have to spend money daily to buy water from outside, the report said.

Expressing disappointment in opting for their choice of medical college, which has an annual fee of Rs 1.25 lakh, students said in the report: "We are studying in one of the costliest government medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh. We chose this college over other options because it is in Noida and was expected to have better facilities. But the reality is completely different. It feels like we made the wrong choice.”