CHENNAI: Thirty-three out of 43 super speciality postgraduate medical seats exclusively meant for in-service doctors in Tamil Nadu remained vacant after a special stray vacancy round conducted online on Saturday and Sunday by the selection committee of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research.
Though the cutoff was reduced from 50th percentile to 30th percentile, only 10 of 43 seats returned to the state by the centre got filled this year.
The seats were left unfilled even for much-needed specialities, including cardiothoracic surgery, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, neurosurgery, and neurology.
According to the selection committee officials, 30 seats remained vacant after counselling, and three people did not join college. The unfilled seats will be surrendered back to the Union Health Ministry.
Demand is to reduce percentile to zero for SS med seats: TNMOA
Last year, 24 seats remained vacant, the officials said. The selection committee conducted the counselling for DM and MCh courses after the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) returned the 43 in-service seats after an SC order. The state had earlier surrendered 151 seats that remained unfilled after two rounds of counselling.
The TN Medical Officers Association (TNMOA), which had earlier filed a writ petition in the SC in relation to the NEET-SS case, said if the percentile is reduced to zero, several government doctors would become eligible.
The Centre reduced the qualifying score to 30 percentile after the SC asked it to reconsider its decision not to reduce the cutoff for NEET-SS. The court was hearing a petition filed by the TNMOA represented by senior advocate P Wilson, who argued that the vacant seats should be returned to the state and cutoff must be cut to zero percentile.
During the proceedings, the Centre agreed to reduce the qualifying score from 50th percentile to 30th percentile and returned the 43 seats for a special state counselling round.
Dr M Akilan, state secretary, TNMOA, said, “Last year, the percentile was reduced to zero. This year they have reduced it to the 30th percentile only. Our demand is to reduce the percentile to zero.”
Akilan further said the government should pass a special resolution seeking the protection of the state’s in-service quota in super speciality courses. Also, the National Medical Commission should allow state governments to decide the eligibility criteria for the seats they hold for their in-service quota as it can be filled via a separate route of entry (approved by the SC and various high courts), he added.
A government doctor who is pursuing a super speciality course said that not a single seat should go waste when people need more specialist doctors in TN. Earlier political leaders, including former CM MK Stalin, strongly urged the centre to reduce the qualifying cutoff to zero as was done in previous years to prevent precious medical seats going vacant.
Stalin in a social media post on September 11 said that it is shocking that nearly 1,857 valuable SS seats are lying vacant across the country as the DGHS has not reduced the qualifying percentile.