Over 73 house surgeons at the Ernakulam Government Medical College in Kalamassery, Kochi, boycotted non-emergency services in the hospital for the second day on Friday. They were protesting the delay in re-starting non-COVID-19 treatments at the hospital. Adding the over month-long delay to the several months already lost due to the pandemic, protesting MBBS students said that this is taking a toll on the quality of their practice.
On November 25, the Union Health Ministry had directed all the states and union territories to reopen medical colleges and to ensure that there are sufficient number of non-COVID-19 beds in the hospitals, to facilitate undergraduate medical training. Though most of the medical colleges in the state resumed routine operations for the final year MBBS students and house surgeons, students allege that the Ernakulam Government Medical College has not yet followed through with this directive.
The medical college has a non-COVID-19 outpatient wing, but does not have an inpatient wing for the same.
“According to our syllabus, during the academic year, we should get hands on training in 12 departments. But we have been mostly doing the COVID-19 duty, not getting the required training in other departments. Though we were taken to other medical colleges for training after we were made a COVID-19 hospital, we got only a limited training period of about four months. It has to be noted that house surgeons of other medical colleges got at least eight and half months of routine training,” Siby Manuel, President of House Surgeons Association of Ernakulam Medical College, told TNM.
Though the house surgeons are getting hands-on experience on COVID-19 clinical duty, they raise concerns that it is not the kind of training they would have received in any other academic year.
“Our academic year has only been extended by a month, so there will not be any compensation for the training we have lost. That is why we are pushing to resume non-COVID-19 treatment as soon as possible,” Siby added.
Final year MBBS students were also part of the protest. “In other medical colleges, final years are now doing clinical posting. But it hasn’t started here since there are no non-COVID-19 patients. That is why we joined the protest,” says Nameer KK.
However, by the end of the day, the protestors decided to call off the agitation. This was done as District Collector S Suhas who met with the students, “promised immediate intervention”, the protestors said.
In an official statement, the DC said that ongoing works at the Aluva District Hospital to arrange more facilities for COVID-19 treatment will be completed fast, which will allow for in-patient facility for non-COVID-19 patients at the medical college.
He has also announced that Rs 35 lakh was allotted to the Aluva hospital from the state disaster relief fund and Rs 45 lakh from the national health mission fund, for making the arrangements for more facilities. Within January 31, a separate block for COVID-19 with 100 oxygen bed facilities will be opened at the Aluva hospital, he said.
Ernakulam district currently has the highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the state, standing at 8,619.