With the Supreme Court adjourning the hearing for the NEET PG Counselling 2021 EWS/ OBC quota plea on Wednesday, and with the matter scheduled to be taken up again on Thursday, PG students who are awaiting the counselling process as well as resident doctors are a worried lot.
The resident doctors who have not gone home for over six months and who have been at the forefront fighting two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, feel that the quality of treatment would suffer if their tenure is extended any longer.
Since the counselling process for PG has been delayed almost by a year, the tenure of the resident doctors has been extended by the same period.
“We have been at the forefront during the first and second waves of the pandemic, and now the third wave has also arrived. There is no relief for us, as the first year students are yet to come. Each one of us is doing the job of three doctors,” said Dr. Firoz, a final year PG student of Andhra Medical College.
“One doctor is working for over 12 hours and taking care of almost 40 patients,” said Dr. Srilekha, another PG final year student of AMC.
AMC admits around 200 students per year into various wings of post-graduate studies. For the three years of the course, there should be over 600 PG students who are resident doctors. But since the admission process has been delayed by over a year, there are only 400 resident doctors on campus. They have been bearing the brunt for the past two years, said AMC principal Dr. P.V. Sudhakar.
Not only AMC, but all teaching hospitals across the country have a similar story to share, and over 70,000 PG students are suffering the same fate.
While on one hand the final and second year students have been overworked for a period of around one year, one batch of students had lost one full academic year due to the delay.
Doctors feel that both the Union Government and the Supreme Court should have fast-tracked the decision-making process by giving priority to the health sector.
