By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: In what can be termed as good news for the medical student fraternity, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has finally awarded recognition to the MBBS under graduate courses in the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS).
The MCI recognition was officially intimated to NEIGRIHMS Director, Dr AG Ahangar, on Saturday morning.
Expressing his immense satisfaction in getting the MCI recognition for the courses at NEIGRIHMS, Dr Ahangar on Monday said all doubts and insecurities in the minds of the students and their well wishers have finally been removed.
“The first batch of the MBBS students would remain for the next one year till they complete their internship. I know that these students are going through a lot of stress for the past several months since they were not very sure if they would get the MCI recognition,” Dr Ahangar said while making the formal announcement on the MCI recognition at a press conference here on Monday.
The MCI officials had in December 2012, inspected the outgoing examination of the MBBS graduate course.
It may be mentioned that the under graduate MBBS courses was started at NEIGRIHMS on August 20, 2008 while post graduate courses like MD, MS in various disciplines and post doctoral courses in Cardiology were started in 2009.
When asked about the criteria on which the recognition was based, Dr Ahangar said that the MCI has accorded the recognition after looking into various aspects like infrastructures, training facilities, faculty, laboratories, teaching programmes, curriculum, syllabi and the thorough, qualitative and transparent conduct of examinations.
He, however, admitted that the institute is suffering from severe dearth of faculties.
“At present, the institute is having shortage of around 40 to 50 faculties. We are adopting a fast track mode to recruit the requisite number of faculties. We are hoping to conduct at least two interviews for recruitment of the faculties in the institute this year alone,” Dr Ahangar said.
The NEIGRHIMS Director, however, stated that the problem of shortage of faculties is prevailing across India and elsewhere across the globe.
“Even in Europe, a similar trend is prevailing,” Dr Ahangar said, while also informing that since NEIGRIHMS is located in a ‘far off place’, they are offering various kinds of incentives to encourage doctors to join the institute.
“In order to encourage doctors to join the institute, we are contemplating to provide a plot of land for the faculties so that they have some kind of post retirement social security,” he said.
To ensure health for all, he informed that a plan is in the offing to put in place a micro-insurance system wherein out patients will need to pay Rs 5 in order to be insured for Rs 20,000 for a period of one year.