With the world fighting against the new variant Omicron of coronavirus, doctors are simultaneously fighting for their rights. For days, young doctors have been protesting outside the Union health ministry’s office in the national capital.
As a result of the delay in postgraduate National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET-PG) admissions in medical colleges, resident doctors’ and medical associations say there is an acute shortage of manpower at a time when the new variation of Covid, Omicron, is being discovered across the country.
NEET-PG is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), which is part of the Union Ministry of Education’s department of higher education. The agency conducts all entrance exams for medical schools in the country. In the three years following the postgraduate exam, the students become junior residents. Patients treated in emergency departments, treated in outpatient departments, and treated in hospitals are major parts of their training during this period. Because the junior residency program for these physicians has been halted, India’s health workforce currently lacks 50,000 critical workers, which further stresses those already working on the front lines.
NEET-PG is normally held in January, but a pandemic forced the exam to be postponed to September this year. In normal years, academic counseling takes place by March, but the government announced it would occur in November this year. Thus the delay of counseling has burdened the doctors already working.
On the other hand, the ministry expresses concern over delayed counseling and the consequences it may have for students. It is either a lack of coordination between various ministries, or a lack of willingness to ensure coordination. The problem seems beyond resolution.
In a statement issued on December 25, the Federation of Resident Doctors Association said “resident doctors across the nation will be forced to resign” if their demands are not met “at the earliest”.
