Unrecognised PG Degrees: 113 Specialists on STRIKE Against Medical Council Decision

The state medical council decided to not accept their degrees anymore, which has agitated the doctors, who clearly got admissions at the “unrecognized” medical colleges of UP under the state government quota at the first place.

Dehradun: The Uttarakhand Medical Council (UMC) is facing a lot of heat from more than  100 specialists, whose Post-Graduate (PG) degrees had been ‘unrecognised’ by the council. The 113 doctors working with various government institutions in the state recently went on a strike demanding that the state medical council retract its decision of scrapping their degrees with immediate effect.

All these doctors have acquired their post-graduation degrees from different medical colleges in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, under state government’s quota as part of special provisions made for them by UP and Uttarakhand governments in 2004, 2007 and 2014. These courses, however, do not carry the Medical Council of India (MCI) recognition.

It has been reported that the state government had sent the MBBS doctors to UP for acquiring the specialist degrees without verifying Medical Council of India (MCI) recognition status of the said courses at UP medical colleges.

Earlier in July this year, when the council stumbled upon the unrecognised status of these degrees, it decided to hold their additional qualifications as invalid.  According to the council, in some cases, degrees were acquired against ‘unavailable’ seats (for example, the college had 20 seats, but admissions were given to 22 doctors, which means degrees of two doctors are invalid and those two are from Uttarakhand.

Later, the Council recommended the suspension of its 113 specialists doctors and directed the Health Department to “scrap their degrees or allow these specialist doctors to work” only in Uttarakhand as a specialist and nowhere else. In other states, they may be allowed to work just as an MBBS doctor, despite their studies.

Read Also: Uttarakhand Medical Council Recommends Suspension of 113 Specialists, Scrapping of Degrees

Agitated, the doctors who clearly got admissions at the “unrecognized courses” at medical colleges of UP under the state government quota in the first place sought the state government’s intervention into the matter.

Dr DP Joshi, President of Uttarakhand Provincial Medical Health Services, told TOI, “We want the state government to allow all the doctors to continue practising in Uttarakhand. The state government had selected the candidates and sent them voluntarily to Uttar Pradesh. They can’t wash their hands of the matter now. The state government should intervene in the matter at the earliest so that the patients are not harassed.”

 In addition, the doctors have also demanded one-time Dynamic Assured Career Progression promotion irrespective of service years spent in the hills or plains.

The protesting doctors including radiologists, pediatricians, gynecologists, and eye surgeons have announced that they will continue their strike until their demands are met. This agitation is reportedly putting patients, as well as the medical facilities they are working in, into a lot of hardships.

The worst affected remained Coronation Hospital in Dehradun, Base Hospital Kotdwar and government hospital Haridwar where paediatricians, gynaecologists and eye surgeons denied performing surgeries and many patients had to be taken to private hospitals.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the matter came to light when a doctor for Nainital contacted the council to get his diploma registered. The moment the council found that the doctor studied this course from a university which didn’t have any approval to conduct the same, he was barred from practice.

Later, 7 radiologists who held qualifications of Diploma in Medical Radio Diagnosis (DMRD) were suspended and directed not to conduct sonography and other radiology tests of patients, unless they get clearance from MCI.

Read Also: Unrecognised DMRD: Uttarakhand Medical Council bars 7 passouts of UP government medical colleges