The delay in NEET-PG counselling is causing a hiatus among the careers of medical aspirants and resident doctors, leading to nationwide agitation. Not only PG candidates but approx 16 lakh UG aspirants who prepare for years to qualify for a seat in government medical colleges through the national eligibility cum entrance exam (NEET) are also stressed about their future as the session for 2021 has already begun in September in case of other professions and the admission process is yet to be completed in the medical field.
This whole situation has resulted in the protest of thousands of junior doctors in the major cities, opposing the check-up of the OPD and the other non-emergency patients until provided with supplementary manpower.
The government hospitals are facing a poor doctor-to-patient ratio because the first-year resident doctors are the prime front line warriors in any hospital and they haven’t been acknowledged yet, now left with the second-year residents, the only hope to compensate for the overdue admission and outrage caused and thus are forced to overwork during the times of pandemic and the third year doctor’s academic year has finished.
The two well-known organizations, The Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) and Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) pleaded with the Chief Justice of India as well as the Supreme Court to wrap up the judgment and fasten the NEET-PG 2021 counselling process and grant access to the new candidates.
The NEET entrance examination for both Undergraduate and Postgraduate aspirants was conducted on September 2021 and counselling for the admission in government/private MBBS, BDS, BAMS, BHMS, BUMS institutes was anticipated to commence from the 26th of October but the late result announcement pushed the dates to November and now it has been further dragged down to January because of the reservation issue.
27% reservation for other backward classes (OBC) and 10% reservation for economically weaker section (EWS) were set by the union government for All-India Quota 2021 counselling, which was to be enforced with this session itself. But pleas have been filed by many in the supreme court to limit the annual income to 8 lakhs to fall under the EWS category.
The court has been adjourned till the 6th of January and the fresh conclusions will be confronted on that day until then no counselling for this session will proceed, the centre addressed.
The drastic uphold by the stakeholders resulted in FORDA and FAIMA to call out for the federal strike, initially and now the domination is observed to be increasing day by day as multiple resident doctors’ associations including Ram Manohar Lohia (RML), Lady Hardinge, Safdarjung Hospitals have similarly joined hands for the agenda on 3rd of December to regulate the NEET-PG counselling promptly and thus to restore the void of across 40,000 doctors.
The junior doctors have withdrawn from non-emergency routines, OPDs, special clinics, IPDs, Elective OTS till capitalized by the valid assurance from the government. The Resident Doctor Association (RDA) of RML hospital cautioned the authority by quoting,
“We will be forced to take the extreme and harsh decision of shutting down the emergency services as well and complete responsibility will be on administration”
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