Schedule NEET PG 2021, final-year MBBS, FMGE exams early: IMA

NEW DELHI: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has urged the central government to enhance healthcare manpower by scheduling early the final year undergraduate (MBBS), National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) PG and Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) exams. The NEET PG 2021 exam has been postponed, while most of the universities have also postponed the final year UG exams due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.

India is passing through the devastating second wave of coronavirus infection with over 2.7 lakh cases reported in the past 24 hours and over 1,600 deaths. This has placed incredible strain on India’s health infrastructure and all staff on COVID-care - doctors, faculty and postgraduate residents of medical colleges - are overworked.

The IMA in its letter to the central government has stated that as the daily turnover patient’s inflow is likely to reach the peak of 3.5 to 4 lakhs within the next two weeks and therefore the country is in acute need of more qualified doctors to man this treacherous service.

“The NEET PG exams were postponed because of increasing cases of coronavirus, which has hampered the process of getting nearly 45,000 postgraduate residents who are always in the front line of the battle to safeguard the patients,” the IMA letter says.

NEET PG 2021

A total of 1,74,886 candidates have registered for NEET PG 2021, and are waiting for the examinations to enter into post-graduation courses. Once the exams are over most of these doctors will join as junior residents in various medical colleges when they are not selected for a PG course.

According to IMA, now with last-minute postponement without the rescheduled dates, a large chunk of 1,74,886 doctors are continuing their preparations for the competitive NEET-PG examination without joining any hospitals.

MBBS Interns

Most of the health care universities have postponed their final year undergraduate (UG) exams because of which the interns entering into the health care systems for their one-year compulsory internship have also been delayed while in many institution interns who already joined have completed their internship and have been relieved. As per the IMA, this situation has created an acute shortage of interns in many medical colleges.

“As an emergency means the National Medical Commission and Universities shall come forward to conduct the final year exams under online mode and enable the passed out 80000 doctors to join the health care force to augment its expertise care,” it writes.

Liberal FMGE exam

India has nearly one lake foreign medical graduates awaiting the clearance of FMGE exam, mandatorily required to practice in India. The pass percentage of FMGE is around 15 percent and hence 100 thousands of these doctors are just spending their time in preparations for these FMGE exams and not able to serve. While IMA agrees in principle that these exams are mandatory to ensure quality care, it writes: “As the situation demands more hands to serve in the prompt delivery of healthcare is an emergency, as a one-time measure shall be taken to conduct a liberal screening test and enrolling as many of these foreign medical graduates into our health care institutions to augment the manpower.”

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