Ghost Faculty, inadequate infrastructure: Experts question why certain medical colleges are even allowed to operate
New Delhi: Soon after the National Medical Commission's (NMC) data revealed that the majority of the medical colleges are operating with ghost faculties and low attendance, experts started questioning why permission was granted by the Commission to all these medical institutes.
Unveiling a disconcerting reality within a majority of medical colleges, NMC in a recent assessment conducted for the academic year 2022-2023 revealed that most of the medical colleges were riddled with ghost faculties and senior residents, coupled with none meeting the mandated 50% attendance requirement.
In total, 246 undergraduate medical colleges in 27 states were assessed for granting recognition or continuation of recognition for academic year 2022-23, the UG Board of NMC recently informed.
Referring to the NMC data, Dr Ravi Wankhedkar, Health Activist and Past president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) asked, "If so than why permission was granted by NMC to all these colleges?"
"Maintaining Quality of Med education is important for safeguarding health of common people rather than indiscriminately opening new colleges just for political purposes," he further said.
The NMC revealed the data while replying to the Associations of Emergency Physicians of India (AEPI) over their grievance regarding the exclusion of emergency medicine speciality as a requirement for setting up new medical colleges.
In a recently notified regulation, the NMC excluded the requirement of an emergency department for setting up new medical colleges, which was previously included among the 14 mandatory departments for the new medical colleges.
While responding to the AEPI, the UG Medical Education Board of NMC said that the real picture on emergency medicine departments is different from what it looks like on paper. NMC revealed that the emergency departments were seldom visited as there were no assigned personnel present apart from the casualty medical officer.
In its reply, the Commission stated, "While checking the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance of these colleges, we were shocked to note that there was 100 per cent failure in all colleges with respect to the faculty and senior resident doctors employed to fulfil the requirements as per the MSR (minimum standard requirement) 2020. Majority of the colleges had ghost faculty and SRS (senior residents) or had not employed the required faculty at all."
The attendance was evaluated randomly at any time of the year during the working days at a stretch for about two months, the board said.
"After warning the colleges for deficiencies and after giving them adequate time to fulfil deficiencies, none of the colleges met with the requirement of even 50 per cent attendance. Zero attendance was still common. This only establishes that although on paper the data is 134 colleges with emergency medicine departments, the facts are far from the depicted picture," the reply stated.
Speaking to Medical Dialogues in this regard, Dr. Wankhedkar said, "NMC is the only responsible body for regulating medical education and they themselves saying that we have failed in our duty is ridiculous! The National Medical Commission is at fault on two grounds- one, they gave permission even on the basis of information provided by the colleges themselves without verification. That has been a major change vis-à-vis the Medical Council of India time and now. Secondly, twice the National Medical Commission came out with a circular that all those colleges where inspections could not be conducted should be considered to be deemed to be recognised."
Earlier in July 2023, NMC granted permission to medical colleges/institutes with pending NMC recognition to admit a fresh batch of MBBS students with the same intake as in the academic year 2022-2023. The Apex medical education regulatory body NMC took this decision as it took note of the schedule of the counselling of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2023 examination.
"If the quality of doctors is subpar they will endanger the health of common man. Even for the postgraduate medical education, they have decreased it to zero percentile. At the postgraduate medical education level, you label them as specialists. They become qualified surgeons, qualified paediatricians," Dr. Wankhedkar further pointed out.
Referring to the situation, he further added, "So, it is absolute bad governance and the entire blame lies with them."
Also Read: Relief: NMC allows Medical Colleges with pending recognition to admit fresh MBBS batch
Responding to the situation, the National M.Sc Medical Teachers' Association (NMMTA) also took a dig on NMC. In a recent Tweet, the association posted on X (formerly Twitter), "None of these matter; to improve medical education one or two 'non-medical' teachers in non-clinical disciplines have to be removed. This is the masterstroke of NMC!!"
In the Tweet, NMMTA tagged the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME), which recently granted recognition to NMC and the medical colleges regulated by the Commission for 10 years.
Referring to this, the association mentioned, "Congratulations to @wfmeorg for giving blanket recognition to all Indian medical colleges. You got played!!"
Meanwhile, responding to the Commission's decision of doing away with the Emergency Medicine Department because of faculty shortage, Health Activist Dr. KV Babu mentioned in a tweet, "When there is shortage of faculty ,no need of the Dept itself. When no meritorious students Zero Percentile. Strange!"
"Ghost faculty & Zero Percentile PG Students! What a deadly combination," Dr. Babu mentioned in another Tweet.
Commenting on the situation, another doctor Tweeted, "How did the inspectors give permission ?? What were the considerations. Everyone in the medical field knows the truth. There is more than meets the eye. MCI to NMC same systematic illness."
Speaking to Medical Dialogues in this regard, the National Standing Committee member of IMA JDN Dr. Karan Juneja opined that the focus should be on quality rather than quantity. Dr. Juneja said, "Instead of increasing the number of MBBS seats, I believe that NMC and the authorities should focus on improving the quality of medical education in the existing medical colleges. Several doctors are already facing unemployment. So, the need of the hour is more Postgraduate medical seats and Superspeciality departments like oncology, cardiology, etc. Doctors should have access to better employment opportunities and skill-building."
Addressing the issue of ghost faculties, he added, "Private medical colleges become unable to pay salary to the faculties and this is the reason the issue of ghost faculty arises. The NMC rules require better infrastructure and facilities in the medical colleges, which becomes difficult for a medical college to manage."
While on the one hand, the NMC data reveals the real situation of the medical colleges, on the other, the Commission recently notified the Maintenance of Standards of Medical Education Regulations, 2023 or MSMER-2023 in the official Gazette.
Notifying these regulations, NMC announced that a Rs 1 crore penalty would be imposed on medical colleges if they fail to follow the norms regarding the maintenance of medical education standards.
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