NEET would worsen crunch of doctors in UP
The state government is all set to hold the UP Post Graduate Medical Entrance Exam (UPPGMEE) to fill post graduate medical seats in state medical colleges which are not even recognised.
As per official records, over 10% of the 672 post graduate medical seats in state medical colleges are not recognised by the medical council of India on account of reasons like shortage of teachers and lack of infrastructure. "Going ahead with NEET would mean not taking admission to 73 unrecognised medical seats which would add to the existing crunch of specialist doctors in Uttar Pradesh. Losing 10% seats would be a big loss," said JP Sharma principal secretary medical education.Medical Council of India awards recognition to a medical institution and its departments on the criterion that primarily takes into account number of faculty members in position, resources available with the department, availability of clinical material (patients), nurses, paramedics, library facilities, etc. The recognition is reviewed on a regular basis and if a department fails to meet the criteria, the recognition is withdrawn. In Baba Raghav Das Medical College more than 37% seats are not recognised. SGPGIMS on the other hand may be termed as the best institute for it has been able to sustain affiliation of all its seats despite acute shortage of teachers. Medical colleges in Jhansi and Allahabad followed Gorakhpur are at the second and third places, respectively with the MCI sword hanging on 23.63% and 20.7% seats.
KGMU, the state's only medical university with the highest share of students and resources, is also facing a crunch of teachers which pushed many of its specialties into the non-recognised category. Here, over 5% seats are not recognised. The GSVM medical college in Kanpur too accounts for 7.07% seats not recognised.
Students who would take admission to medical colleges in Agra and Meerut may consider themselves luckier than others as the two colleges account for less than 5% recognised seats. While only 4.28% seats are not recognised in Meerut, 4% seats belong to the same category in Agra."This is mainly due to the acute shortage of medical teachers," said Dr KK Gupta, director general medical education, UP. He added that the government was making efforts to employ as many teachers as possible. "The issue is many young people do not want to pursue medical education," he stated.