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Students' strike paralyses medical services in MP

Our correspondent in Bhopal

An indefinite strike by medical college students paralysed medical services in Madhya Pradesh on Friday.

Students of all six medical colleges in the state went on strike against a government decision to scrap admission exams for post-graduate medical courses.

The state government said it had taken the decision to favour schedule caste and schedule tribe students, since few gain admission to post-graduate courses. Earlier, the vacant reserved category seats reverted to general category students.

Students of Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal and other medical colleges in the state prevented doctors from entering hospitals. Junior doctors have joined the agitation.

The students said that the government's decision was against their interests.

GMC MBBS final year student Smith Jakheria said the government's decision to grant admission to post-graduate courses on the basis of MBBS final year marks would only end the transparency of such examinations. He explained that with the abolition of the pre-PG medical test, admission to post-graduates courses was open to manipulation through influence and money.

Though students of the ST/SC category favour the pre-PG test, they are demanding changes in the examination procedure so that their seats are not allotted to general category students.

Dinesh Patel, a GMC final year MBBS student, who is representating ST/SC students, said talks with general category students, for a joint agitation, failed as they did not agree that the vacant seats from the reserved quota should be filled by only reserved category students.

Congress parliamentarian and Adivasi Vikas Parished president Kanti Lal Bhuria said students of the reserved category threatened to join the agitation. Bhuria alleged that some senior officers, doctors and professors at medical colleges were instigating general category students.

He said that this time the reserved category students would not surrender and they would give a befitting reply to all 'people harming their interests'.

The Madhya Pradesh government refused to provide a copy of the notification on scrapping the pre-PG test to striking students.

Chief Minister Digvijay Singh said that he was examining the legality of general category students appearing for the pre-PG test, while ST/SC candidates were gaining entry on the basis of their MBBS final year marks.

Many patients have vacated government hospitals as medical services came to a standstill

Santosh Yadav watched in anguish his five-year-old daughter writhing in pain at the GMC hospital and complained that no doctor attended to her. Yadav, a daily wage labourer, said he was helpless as he could not afford a private hospital.

Shameena Bi said her 18-year-old niece Ayesha, who underwent surgery, was suffering in the absence of post-operative care.

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