CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Anbumani has urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin to issue appropriate orders to create additional training places for medical students abroad and reduce fees as announced.
In a statement issued by him, he said: Although the Tamil Nadu government has announced the cancellation of fees for students who have studied medicine in foreign countries including China and Russia, for two years of training in government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, poor and middle class students have been affected as it has not yet come into effect. The announcement that these students will be allowed to train in the newly started medical colleges has also not materialized, which is disappointing.
Students from many states including Tamil Nadu study medicine in more than ten countries including Russia, America, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, China, Germany. Students who have studied medicine in this way have to succeed in the foreign medical graduate examination conducted by the Central Government’s National Examination Board. After that two years of training in any medical college hospital can be registered as a doctor with the Medical Council.
More than 600 people who studied medicine abroad from Tamil Nadu and passed the foreign medical graduate examination are unable to join government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu due to two reasons. Foremost among them is that medical students abroad can train only in a select few hospitals, including the 4 medical colleges in Chennai;
As the number of places reserved for foreign medical students in these hospitals has been reduced from 10% to 7.5%, the number of training places for them has decreased. The government of Tamil Nadu has promised that foreign medical students will be allowed to undergo training in all the newly started 11 medical colleges in Tamil Nadu. However, the problem of medical students has not been solved because that is also a promise.
Foreign medical students have to pay Rs 2 lakh to medical colleges for two-year training in government medical colleges and Rs 3.20 lakh to MGR Medical University for clearance certificate. Students who cannot afford to study medicine in India go abroad to study medicine at low cost. After pointing out that charging Rs 5.20 lakh for training from them is unfair, the Tamil Nadu government has completely canceled the fees to be paid to the medical colleges and announced on July 29 that the amount to be paid to the university has also been reduced to Rs 30 thousand. But the reason for the problem is that no ordinance has yet been issued to implement the notification. Each student must spend up to 6 years studying medicine abroad.
After that it may take 2-3 years to pass the foreign medical graduate exam. Having spent 9 years like that, they could not get training for the last one year. Having spent 10 years for junior medical studies so far, even if they start training now, they can register as junior doctors only after another two years. This is a very long time.
In such an environment, every day the Tamil Nadu government delays in creating more places for medical training and implementing fee reduction will affect their lives and frustrate them. If Chief Minister M.K.Stalin thinks so, he can call the ministers and officials of the concerned departments and issue appropriate orders within an hour.
Anbumani urged that since this issue related to the future of medical students is one of the most important issues of Tamil Nadu, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu should immediately intervene in this matter and issue appropriate orders to create additional training places for medical students abroad and reduce the fees as announced.