Andhra Pradesh may lose 100 to 150 PG Medical, SS Seats due to faculty crisis at Medical colleges

This crisis has become even more severe after the State Government's recent order of transferring the faculties who have worked for five years. This has resulted in a situation where the existing faculties of a medical college have been transferred to somewhere else without any replacement in their places.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that Andhra Pradesh Government had directed that medical professionals who have worked in the same place for five years under the Andhra Pradesh Medical Council Policy in the Department of Medicine and Health would have to go through a mandatory transfer now.

The guidelines issued in the Government order dated January 28 set the deadline for submitting the transfer application as February 15 and the deadline for processing those applications as February 18.

It was being speculated that around 1,023 employees would be transferred because of this rule.

While the decision of the Government has followed by controversies, medical students in the state are worried over the possibility of loss of several PG and Super Specialty seats resulting from the lack of faculties in the medical institutes.

The National Medical Commission norms clearly specify that for each two PG seats in a department, the presence of a Professor is necessary. As per the norms, one Associate Professor earns the sanction for one PG seat.

However, if the medical college has been running for 10 years, one Professor fetches three PG seats. Regarding the Super Specialty seats, the post of a professor helps getting nod for one seat.

Meanwhile, due to the order of the Andhra Pradesh Government, with a 30 per cent cap state-wide, several senior faculty members are getting transferred and this is resulting in total vacancy in some cases. In fact, no one is coming as a replacement as well.

Also Read: Andhra Pradesh: Mandatory transfer for medical professionals working under the AP Medical Policy Council

As per the latest media report by Deccan Chronicle, a professor and associate professor from the department of Nephrology in KGH in Visakhapatnam have been transferred to Guntur Medical College.

While this has resulted in a total vacancy in the department, no immediate replacement has been provided for the medical college because there is a shortage of faculty members in the Nephrology department.

In the case of Kurnool Medical College, the department of Bio-Chemistry is running without any faculty. In the same department in Sri Venkateswara Medical College there is no one holding the post of Associate Professor.

A similar situation is at the Government Medical College in Anantapur as well. Although the existing faculties of the departments of psychiatry and general medicine have been transferred, there is no replacement in this regard yet. The post of professor in General Medicine is lying vacant after the faculty got transferred to Kurnool.

Deccan Chronicle adds that around 80 medical professionals including professors, doctors and nursing staff have been transferred from Anantapur to Kurnool, Kadapa and Srikakulam. It is being speculated that a majority of these doctors and nursing staff would go on leaves after submitting their joining reports.

The daily adds that a senior specialist doctor in the state can earn around 3 to 5 lakh rupees per month by working in the corporate hospitals, apart from what they earn in private practice. So, there is a tendency for doctors going on leave after accepting their transfer orders.

However, all this has resulted in a situation where the students are concerned over the loss of PG medical and Super Specialty seats in the State. They are worried about the surprise inspections conducted by NMC. Although the rules specify that there must be 30 per cent faculty in each department, if several departments are found to be functioning with partial or no faculty members at all, the PG and Super Specialty seats for the next academic year can be lost.

While commenting on the matter, a PG medical student told the daily, We fear some 100 to 150 PG and super specialty seats may be lost in AP if the same trend on transfers continues mainly because of non-availability of suitable faculty members to fill the vacancies that arise due to transfers."

The only hope for the students remains the fresh recruitments conducted by the State Government, along with the promotions of existing faculties, which might result in filling up the vacancies to some extent.

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