Doctors to meet Union Health Minister seeking postponement of NEET PG 2023 exam

New Delhi: Although the application deadline for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) examination 2023 has ended on January 27, the doctors are demanding the postponement of the exam, scheduled for March 5, 2023.

After writing to the authorities and pointing out that around 10,000 NEET PG aspirants were ineligible to appear for the exam, now a delegation of Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) is going to meet the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tomorrow.

Sharing this detail on Twitter, FAIMA mentioned, "A delegation of #FAIMA will be having meeting with Hon'ble Health Minister Shri @mansukhmandviya Ji regarding #NEETPG2023 Postponement issue on 31st January! We hope Sir will listen to our demands & will provide some solution!"

Earlier FAIMA had written to the Union Health Minister and pointed out that around 10,000 NEET PG aspirants will not be able to appear for the entrance test. Therefore, the association had urged the authorities for postponing the exam by 2-3 months and reconsider the eligibility criteria.

National Board of examinations (NBE) had earlier announced that NEET PG 2023 will be held on 5th March 2023. The result will be declared By 31st March 2023. As per the previous eligibility criteria announced by NBE, the NEET PG 2023 candidates must complete their mandatory one-year MBBS internship on or before March 31.

However, Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that due to this Internship Deadline, hundreds of students were facing year loss since they were unable to fulfill the eligibility criteria of completing the MBBS internship within March 31.

Also Read: Around 3,000 NEET PG Aspirants ineligible: KNRUHS Medicos approach State Health Minister seeking postponement of exam

After various representations from doctors and organizations, finally NBE offered to relief to the NEET PG aspirants and extended the Internship Deadline to June 30, 2023.

Even after postponement of the exam, several thousands of candidates remained ineligible for the exam. In Telangana alone, altogether 3000 students remained ineligible since the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) extended the internship completion date of MBBS students till August 11. Kakatiya Medical College (KMC) alone has about 200 interns who are now ineligible for writing the PG medical entrance test.

On January 24, 2023, taking up the issue of such candidates, FAIMA had written to the Union Health Minister. "Every year lakhs of post MBBS doctors appear in this exam chasing their dream. Each Medical Specialist doctors add to strength on ground doctor which helps the patient & society in their best possible ways they could they can and also who plays a significant role in providing strength to existing health care system of this country which has also been proved during the Covid Pandemic."

"If the exam is conducted on the official said date, there will be around 10000 potential eligible MBBS doctors who won't be able to write the life deciding exam and will be back in their career for around 1 year which will be a huge loss to the existing resident doctors, work hours, patient load and healthcare system of the country," the letter further added.

"Recently regarding NEET PG 2022, stray round counselling was conducted on 10/01/2023 in which many NEET PG aspirants participated in attending the counselling, due to which lots of NEET PG aspirants participated in attending the counselling, due to which lots of NEET PG aspirants aren't able to give ample amount of time to prepare for the said exam on 5th March 2023. We have also noticed a helpful decision by MOHFW in 2022, where NBEMS rescheduled NEET PG on 21/05/2022 & also additionally extended the eligibility criteria for interns due to which lots of intern students of various states were eligible of NEET PG 2022. Even the similar scenario was seen in Covid Pandemic where the NEET PG 2021 was rescheduled from 15/04/21 to 11/09/21," FAIMA had mentioned in the letter.

Therefore, requesting the authorities for postponing the NEET PG exam, the association had mentioned, "Sir, considering the above mentioned facts, FAIMA requests the concern authority to kindly consider the request and do the needful by postponing the exam by 2-3 months & re consideration of eligibility criteria of interns to make them eligible for NEET PG 2023."

Now, in a recent Tweet, FAIMA has informed that a delegation of the association is going to meet the Union Health Minister and request him to postpone the exam.

"NEET PG Internship Deadline has been extended till June 30. So obviously, the counselling process cannot start before July. So, even after appearing in the NEET PG exam on March 5, the students will have no choice but to sit idle for three to four months. They won't even get hired for such a short period of time. I hope that the Honourable Health Minister takes cognizance of the matter and the exam gets postponed," Dr. Rohan Krishnan, the National Chairman of FAIMA told Medical Dialogues.

"The authorities should consider the case of the PG dental students as well since they are facing the similar kind of problems regarding the eligibility criteria," he added.

Also Read: NEET PG 2023 Applications Edit Window now open, Details