THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Most of the doctors pursuing PG from private medical colleges are given poor stipends, a survey by the National Medical Council (NMC) has revealed. In fact, those in the know say the stipends the medicos get are 37 per cent less than what is given to their counterparts in government colleges.
The medicos, who get admission to PG courses in private colleges after paying hefty fees, have poured out their grievances in the survey conducted by NMC, the primary regulatory body for medical education.
As per the information accessed through RTI, the resident doctors get much lower stipends than their counterparts in government medical colleges.
In fact, some private college managements even take a cut from the stipend citing various reasons. The national survey covered 213 colleges in 19 states and two Union Territories. Junior doctors in the Kerala chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) vouched for PG medicos from Kerala to provide maximum responses in the survey from any state.
“The poor stipends force the medicos to depend on their parents to meet their expenses. Most of them are married. So, poor pay and overwork complicate their life. The PG medicos pay around Rs 17 lakh per year as fee in private colleges,” said Dr Ashik Basheer, joint secretary of the General Practitioners Association (GPA).
“While first-year PG students in a government college get over Rs 56,000 per month as a stipend, those in a relatively good private college get 37 per cent less. There may be instances of the payment being even lower, but students do not come out with their grievances publicly fearing backlash,” Ashik said.
NMC received responses from over 10,000 PG students across the country in the online survey held in the first week of May. For students, it was an opportunity to air their grievances without fear.
However, health activists think that the NMC let students down by not taking any affirmative action.
The regulator warned self-financing/private medical colleges of strict action for non-compliance with the provisions of the PG Medical Education Regulations, 2000 if complaints are received in future.
“The National Human Rights Commission, in a direction this March, clearly instructed the NMC to deregister private medical colleges that refuse to clear arrears of interns from July 1, 2021.
Applying the same yardstick, the PG Medical Education Board should have directed self-financing medical colleges of all 19 states and two UTs covered in the survey to clear the arrears of PG medical students/their batches and submit the report considering the survey’s findings. The warning for action against future non-compliance is a meek surrender by the regulator,” alleged Dr Babu K V, an RTI activist.
It should be noted that the PG medicos in government medical colleges under the Kerala Medical PG Association have sought a raise in stipend.