CHENNAI: The ESIC Medical College Hospital, Chennai, is in troubled waters again after the Medical Council of India declined renewal of MBBS admissions for the forthcoming academic year.
The apex medical regulating body has cited unhygienic student hostel rooms, underqualified staff and shortage of essential facilities as reasons for rejecting the proposal to renew permission for fifth batch.
It all began in March last when the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation under the Union Labour Ministry signalled its intention to withdraw from the field of medical education. As this raised questions about future of hundreds of students studying in 11 institutes under the corporation, including the one in Chennai, the college located in K K Nagar witnessed a series of protests by students and staff condemning the corporation’s move.
After much struggle, it finally took the State government’s intervention to restore calm after it took over the operation of the institute under an agreement with the Centre.
Amid all this chaos, the MCI denied permission to admit students pointing out a series of deficiencies for the 2016-17 batch (4th batch). This was repealed after the ESIC authorities submitted compliance report.
However, the same problem has seemed to have surfaced again this year. The executive committee of MCI which met on October 10 declined permission to admit students for MBBS course in the forthcoming year.
The committee members who inspected the college in the previous week cited as many as 25 reasons to deny permission, including 15.97 per cent deficiency in faculty and 27.94 per cent shortage of resident doctors.
Their report also mentioned that the college’s medical superintendent Sowmya Sampath possessed only eight years of administrative experience against requirement of 10 years and hence was not qualified to hold the post. When Express contacted her, she refused to comment.
“Apart from leaky roofs in the central library, the exam hall, students’ hostel were under construction and there was no internet connection,” government sources said.
Responding to this, a senior ESIC administrator said that they have rectified these deficiencies within the stipulated deadline (30 days) and have sent a compliance report to the MCI. The college is awaiting fresh inspection from the committee members before May.