NEET PG 2023: FAIMA to meet Health Minister soon seeking postponement of Exam

New Delhi: Doctors under the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) are soon going to meet the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya seeking postponement of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) Examination.

Although the meeting was scheduled for January 31, it got postponed due to the ongoing budget session and the delegation of the association will try to meet the Health Minister today, informed Dr Rohan Krishnan, the National Chairman of FAIMA.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that FAIMA had written to the Union Health Minister and pointed out that around 10,000 NEET PG aspirants were ineligible for appearing in the exam. 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.

Later, taking note of the fact that thousands of candidates were ineligible to appear in the examination, NBE had extended the Internship Deadline to June 30, 2023.

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

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."

It was decided that the association would meet the Union Health Minister on January 31 to discuss about the matter. Even though the FAIMA delegates approached the Ministry the meeting got rescheduled because of the ongoing Budget session in the Parliament.

Speaking about this, Dr Rohan Krishnan told Medical Dialogues, "Even though the FAIMA delegates could not meet the Health Minister, we have submitted our demands to the Ministry officials. We are in constant touch with the NBE Chairman as well."

"We have demanded to postpone the exam to May. We are hopeful for a solution from the side of the Ministry," he added.

When asked about the candidates who are still ineligible for the examination, he mentioned, "We have raised this issue as well. All those candidates should be given the chance for appearing in the examination. Madhya Pradesh High Court has recently allowed the candidates to apply for NEET PG even though they were ineligible. So, if the Internship Deadline gets extended to to July 30, it will give relief to several candidates."

"The academic schedule got disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it will come back on track gradually," he added.

Also Read: NEET PG 2023 application Edit window opens, make changes till Feb 3