Why Can't Medical College Reports be Made Public? Transparency Woes Plague NMC

New Delhi: While the apex medical regulator, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has been denying recognition to several medical colleges across the country due to inadequate infrastructure, the controversy regarding the medical college assessment reports and the demands to make them public have escalated further.

With media reports suggesting that around 40 medical colleges have lost their recognition and several more might face the same fate in the coming time, the question that bothers aspirants and medical students is which one and why.

Assessment reports for a specific medical college, prepared by the apex medical regulator on the basis of an inspection, reveal the state of the infrastructure available at a particular medical institute. Using these assessment reports, the medical students seeking admission into the medical courses can make informed decisions when choosing the college.

Previously, during the time of the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) started probing a number of cases related to alleged corruption in finalising inspection reports of MCI on the basis of which clearance was given to medical colleges to run a course and admit students.

Back in 2018, in a major decision for the cause of transparency, the Central Information Commission (CIC) directed MCI, which has now been replaced by NMC, to make the inspection reports of all medical institutes in the country public.

"Keeping assessment reports hidden in files away from public gaze is counter-productive for an efficiency of medical education system as prevailing in the nation," Information Commissioner Yashovardhan Azad had mentioned in his order.

"Probity demands that the MCI ought to have pro-actively disclosed the medical assessment report on its website so that all stakeholder viz, the government, the promoters of medical institutions, surveyors, existing and aspiring medical students get to know a real-time crystal clear report card of a particular medical institution," he said.

Also Read: Make public full report of MCI inspection of medical colleges within 6 weeks: CIC to MCI

Although MCI started making college assessment reports public, the erstwhile apex medical body was later replaced by the National Medical Commission (NMC) with the implementation of the NMC Act, 2019.

With NMC taking charge back in September 2020, its website was also replaced by the MCI website in the new domain. Along with this, the data and other documents uploaded by MCI including the college assessment reports of the previous academic year were also removed from the MCI website.

Since NMC stopped uploading the reports for the current academic years on its website, a doctor approached the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) seeking the information in this regard and it was denied by NMC.

Medical Dialogues had last year reported that filing the RTI application when Dr. Mohammed Khader Meeran had approached and sought the medical college assessment reports for the academic year 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, it was denied by NMC on the ground that "the information sought is very voluminous and scattered in various files. It would disproportionately divert the resource of MARB of NMC."

Dissatisfied with the information furnished, the complainant approached CIC and filed a complaint and argued that the concerned assessment reports are public documents under Section 4 (1) (b) of Right to Information Act and it is supposed to be pro-actively disclosed by CPIO of NMC.

Further, the complainant had pointed out that these assessment reports have huge public importance, because disclosing these reports are the only way through which, standards of each medical college and hospital, additional facilities could be known to the aspiring medical students.

Referring to the earlier order of CIC asking erstwhile MCI to disclose the assessment reports of the medical colleges, the complainant had further argued that NMC being the legal successor of MCI is liable to disclose the assessment reports as the CIC order to MCI is binding to NMC's CPIO.

While considering the complaint, earlier this year the CIC advised the NMC to upload the medical college assessment reports for the current academic year on the NMC website.

Also Read: Make all medical college assessment reports public: CIC tells NMC

Will new NMC rules allow the Commission to continue keeping the Assessment Reports Hidden? 

Despite the CIC's advise to NMC for uploading the medical college assessment reports on its website, the Commission is yet to disclose these reports in the public domain.

According to Section 26 (a) of the NMC Act 2019, the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of the NMC shall "determine the procedure for assessing and rating the medical institutions for their compliance with the standards laid down by the Under-Graduate Medical Education Board or the Post-Graduate Medical Education Board, as the case may be, in accordance with the regulations made under this Act."

Section 26(e) specifies that MARB shall "make available on its website or in public domain the assessment and ratings of medical institutions at regular intervals in accordance with the regulations made under this Act".

However, Section 25 of the “Establishment of Medical institutions, Assessment & Rating Regulations, 2023", which was recently published in the Gazette of India on June 02, 2023 mentions-

"Publication of rating – the MARB shall make available on its website or otherwise in the public domain the latest annual assessment results and ratings of medical colleges or medical institutions, in such a manner as to facilitate public understanding and consumption."

These new rules suggest that NMC will only publish the "latest annual assessment results and ratings of medical colleges" replacing the previous practice of erstwhile MCI of uploading assessment reports of every medical college. Further, according to the newly implemented rules, only the "latest" annual assessment results will be available in the public domain, whereas all assessment reports over the years for a specific medical institute used to be available on the website of erstwhile MCI.

Also Read: NMC refuses to share medical college assessment data in public domain

Appeal to the PMO: 

Dr. Mohammed Khader Meeran, who had earlier filed the RTI and approached the CIC seeking a direction upon NMC to make the assessment reports public has already written to the Prime Minister of India, the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the chairman of NMC and other authorities raising his grievances in this regard.

"Disclosing these reports is essential for aspiring medical students seeking admission into medical courses, as it allows them to make informed decisions while choosing the college for admission during counselling process. Furthermore, these assessment reports directly influence the quality of education provided by various medical colleges and the calibre of doctors graduating from these institutions. Therefore, these reports have a direct impact on the overall public health of the nation," Dr. Meeran's letter to PM Modi pointed out.

"...NMC's failure to comply with the Central Information Commission's order to disclose assessment reports further adds to the contradictory nature of its actions. Despite the binding nature of the order, the NMC has not taken the necessary steps to proactively disclose these reports, depriving the public of vital information. These contradictions within the NMC's functioning raise doubts about its commitment to transparency, accountability, and the overall improvement of medical education in the country. It is imperative for the NMC to address these contradictions and work towards establishing a consistent and reliable system that serves the best interests of the public and aspiring medical professionals," the letter mentioned.

“This denial raises concerns about the transparency and accessibility of crucial information related to the assessment of medical colleges. The NMC's failure to disclose these reports not only disregards the CIC order but also impedes the public's right to access important information regarding the quality and standards of medical education," it added.

Referring to the argument on behalf of NMC that it lacks the necessary resources to fulfill the obligation of providing medical college assessment reports, Dr. Meeran mentioned in the letter, "However, on the other hand, it is expected that an organization responsible for monitoring and regulating medical colleges should possess the infrastructure and resources required for such essential tasks."

The letter referred to NMC's assertion regarding the lack of resources to scan and upload the assessment reports once a year, the letter added, "It raises the question of whether the NMC possesses the necessary resources to effectively monitor and analyse the live feeds from over 600 medical colleges, which collectively have more than 21,000 CCTV cameras."

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that failure on the part of medical colleges to implement the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System, AEBAS at their premises and non-compliance with the rules regarding the security (CCTV) cameras recently cost recognition to a number of medical colleges across the country.

Raising the issue of biometric attendance, the letter by Dr. Meeran mentioned, "Without ensuring this biometric attendance live dashboard in every medical college website, NMC was giving recognition for all these medical colleges over three years. This indicates that NMC's current office bearers have failed miserably in ensuring the live dashboard system available in the medical college website in past 3 years."

Speaking to Medical Dialogues about his future course of action, Dr. Meeran said, "Either the Health Ministry is incompetent to identify these mistakes of NMC or the Ministry is supporting such anti-public practices of NMC. Based on the action the Ministry takes in my representation, we will be able to come to a conclusion to any one of the above. If no action is taken I am taking up the issue to court for sure."

"I will be writing to the World Federation of medical education (WFME) also, flagging the irregularities of the NMC," he further added.

Also Read: Medical Education in Jeopardy: 40 medical colleges lose NMC recognition over non-compliance, 100 more under scanner