NEW DELHI: A section of MBBS students expressed disappointment after the Supreme Court on Friday rejected their plea seeking to postpone the NEET-PG 2022 examination. Earlier in the day, the top court had said any delay would cause the unavailability of doctors and seriously affect patient care. “There are two categories of students -- one which is seeking postponement and the larger category of over two lakh six thousand candidates -- who would be affected by the postponement after having prepared for the examination,” the bench said.
But, this group of students claimed there were around 50,000 NEET aspirants who would be reappearing for the exam. Many of them are still looking for seats in the counselling process which is still ongoing, they said. The NEET-PG will be now held on May 21.
Dr Rishabj Jaiswal, a NEET PG aspirant, conducting the exam on the present schedule will only cause further confusions and dilemmas down the line, and manpower shortage in three years. “I think it should have been postponed for six weeks at least. There should be some gap between counselling which is still ongoing and the exam. Those who were mid-rankers in the last exam and did not didn’t get a seat should get some time,” he says
Another NEET aspirant Dr Dinesh Reddy feels the junior doctors and resident doctors, who fought for the people during Covid, are now being ignored. “We are depressed (with the order). We just sought some more time but the government can’t give that too. We are meritorious students and want to appear for this exam properly. Doesn’t this affect the quality of doctors if you ignore the meritorious aspirants?”
Such harshness is not expected towards the caregivers, says Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) president Dr Rohan Krishnan, who is of the petitioners who sought more time from the Supreme Court. “We respect the court decision. But we are disheartened by the ignorance of the society in general and the health ministry in particular. Doctors have only asked for something which is done routinely by the health ministry,” he says.