Should there be uniform stipend for MBBS interns ? Health ministry asks NMC

As per a recent media report, Binoy Viswam, Communist Party of India's Rajya Sabha MP has also submitted a letter to Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare on December 8, 2021. Mr. Mandaviya issued direction to the Secretary, NMC, on January 27 to furnish its views "at the earliest" and directed it to offer its opinion and suggestions on the matter at the earliest.

Mr. Viswam also requested all the ministers have conversations with the stakeholders like State governments, MBBS college managements, medical professionals and MBBS students to formulate a policy keeping in mind the mutual benefit of all the parties involved as well as the medical students.

It is also pertinent to notice the Kerala High Court had already issued an order on October 29, 2015 and directed PMS College of Dental Science and Research, Thiruvananthapuram to ensure equal pay for the BDS interns at par with their counterparts in the government dental colleges in the State. Thus, the issue of equal stipend for medical students has been an issue in the legal areas as well.

According to The Hindu, Mr. Viswam had raised concerns about the disparity in stipends paid to MBBS interns at private/deemed universities versus those at government colleges. Interns are paid a stipend as a matter of entitlement, not charity. He said, however, that there was no equity across all medical institutes. Mr. Viswam pointed out that the NMC's Draft Regulation Compulsory Rotating Internship, 2021, released on April 21, 2021, and gazetted on November 18, 2021, stated that all interns must be paid a certain amount of stipend "as fixed by the appropriate fee fixation authority as applicable to the institution/university/State."

He claimed that the words mentioned in the provision allowed for ambiguity and arbitrariness in the stipend allocation. It's also possible that private college administrators may refuse to pay stipends to MBBS interns because they have complete discretion and no safeguards in place. Mr. Viswam asserted that the repercussions of this could be observed in universities across the country, and he further pointed out that there were differences in the stipend amounts paid in government and private medical colleges, reports the daily.

According to sources, the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI) issued a public notice on the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 1997, on January 25, 2019 and Board of Governors in charge of MCI were also keen on a provision which said that "All the candidates pursuing a compulsory rotating internship at the institution from which MBBS course was completed, shall be paid stipend on par with the stipend being paid to the interns of the State Govt. Medical Institution/Central Government Medical Institution in the State/Union Territory where the institution is located."