Reopen medical colleges: FORDA urges Delhi Govt

New Delhi: The Federation of Resident Doctors' Association India (FORDA) on Saturday wrote a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and state Health Minister Satyendar Jain, requesting them to resume academic activities in medical colleges in a phased manner, asserting that medical students are incurring a massive academic loss.

The Union Health Ministry in a letter dated November 25 had asked state governments and Union Territories to initiate steps to reopen medical colleges from December 1 or before. Delhi has not yet taken a decision on the ministry's directions.

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"As the case positivity rate in Delhi has declined to less than 2 percent and many Covid-19 beds in the hospitals are lying vacant, we urge you to kindly reopen the medical colleges under the Government of NCT Delhi for academic learning as well as skill building," the Federation wrote in a letter.

Recently, the state health department had permitted Covid hospitals under the Delhi government to engage fourth and fifth-year MBBS students, interns and BDS degree doctors to assist the duty doctors.

FORDA India's General Secretary, Sunil Arora, told IANS that academic activities have not yet begun at the Maulana Azad Medical College and the GTB Hospital, which come under the ambit of the Delhi government. "Students have lost one year of learning and skill building. Academic activities must resume in a phased manner," he said.

FORDA India, an umbrella body of resident doctors, regrets that the undergraduate and postgraduate students at these colleges are under stress owing to their academic loss and gloomy future.

Since several healthcare institutions have been designated as exclusive Covid-19 facilities, the doctors' association also urged the Delhi government to initiate non-Covid services in these institutions and bring back first year postgraduate students, who are deployed at the peripheries for Covid-19 services, to their parent institutes.

It requested Kejriwal and Jain to deploy fresh manpower for Covid-care in these healthcare institutions.

"Academic activities in healthcare institutions with associated medical colleges have come to a standstill. Both undergraduate MBBS students and postgraduate resident doctors have already lost huge proportions of their precious academic periods and have incurred serious losses in their academics," the letter said.

Meanwhile, the third Covid wave has weakened in the national capital with decline in daily coronavirus cases. In November, the city was in the grip of the third wave of the infection. The city has now been recoding less than 2,000 coronavirus cases a day from the last one week.

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