Prescribe to fill med seats going vacant

The Supreme Court's concern about vacant postgraduate medical college seats given the perpetual shortage of doctors is timely. It is not just that seats for PG education catering to specialities are going unfilled. Even undergraduate, or MBBS, seats, including in the 19 centres of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Aiims), remain unfilled. The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) under the health ministry, the National Medical Commission (NMC) and GoI must formulate a plan to avoid this situation of concern.

India has one doctor for every 1,511 persons. The World Health Organisation's norm is 1:1000. One option is for the MCC to keep undertaking new rounds of counselling and lowering the cut-off mark till all vacant seats are filled. Some colleges say that the centralisation of admissions by using the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) rankings results in students being assigned the college rather than being given a choice. Applicants can indicate their preference, but are assigned a college as per the MCC list, quite often one other than their preference. Another factor is that applicants may not get their choice of specialisation. One more option is for colleges to indicate and constantly review their cut-off NEET score according to institution and speciality. This would give students the freedom to apply to a college of their choice as long as they make the cut. The MCC, on its part, could maintain oversight to ensure that colleges are not subverting the system and those qualified are being admitted.

India clearly needs to increase its pool of qualified doctors. The admission system must be such that it maximises admission of qualified applicants to ensure the shortfall of well-trained doctors is met.