The Bombay High Court bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni on Wednesday asked the Union Government to reconsider the entire admission process of medical emergency in the country as thousands of medical aspirants visit other countries for medical courses as they are denied admissions here.
The bench was seized with a clutch of petitions pertaining to Covid crisis in the state. On Wednesday, when the matter came up for hearing, the bench noted that there have been complaints about shortage of medical staff and more particularly doctors. The bench further pointed out that in an earlier hearing there was a PIL pertaining to shortage of doctors in jails.
Justice Kulkarni accordingly summoned additional solicitor general Anil Singh, who was there on the video conference and told him that the Union government must reconsider the entire admission process in medical education. "Mr Singh, you should understand the need of the hour is to have a better medical education and admissions particularly," Justice Kulkarni said.
The judge further referred to a case where a student with 192 marks got admission in a medical course in a good college but the ones with 520 weren't considered because they weren't from a reserved category. Without making any reference to reservations, Justice Kulkarni said, "Lakhs of students score between 250 to 450 but the system thinks they aren't useful. And resultantly they don't get any admissions."
"We have a shortage of doctors now. We think the entire medical admission needs a relook. This pandemic has been an eye-opener. It has opened our eyes on medical infrastructure, education, facilities etc." Justice Kulkarni added.
The judge further explained how students, who don't get admissions in India are left with no other option but to opt out of the country. "Our students who are not getting seats here go to Russia, America, Germany etc and become really good doctors. Hardly do all of them come back. Several of them settle there. We should think on this aspect," Justice Kulkarni opined.
"We need our doctors here in our country at this hour," the judge said. To this, ASG Singh said that this is indeed an important issue which seeks a relook but "there are other sensitive issues connected." "Don't speak of sensitivity, we are not on that, all that we are saying is we need our doctors. We can only echo our sentiments," Justice Kulkarni said.
