As part of the means to increase manpower for supporting the tumbling healthcare sector in its fight against covid-19, the PMO gave permission this afternoon for the medical interns and final year MBBS students to be deployed for the same.
According to the new statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office, interns can be employed for helping in covid management duties while final year students can be used for teleconsultations that are needed currently to manage mild cases and those under home isolation.
However, both interns and students can only work under the supervision of senior doctors or faculty members of colleges, etc.
Apart from these medical students, nurses possessing B.Sc or General Nursing and Midwife (GNM) degrees or certifications can also be made responsible for covid duties. Similar to the medical interns and students, these nurses, too, need to be under the supervision of senior doctors or nurses.
Separately, to contain the covid spread and understanding the risks involved, the central government has yet again postponed the NEET-PG medical entrance exam. This second postponement comes after the date was pushed forward for the first time in April “in light of the surge in covid-19 cases”. Now, the entrance exam will be conducted only after August 31st with a month’s notice to all candidates.
The fresh announcement from the PMO comes following Dr Devi Shetty’s suggestions for utilizing trained doctors and nurses, those who are either waiting to appear for their final exams or to write national entrance exams, in the covid fight.
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The cardiac surgeon had brought light on the 25,000 doctors who have completed their PG training and are awaiting examinations. He suggested that these doctors could be exempted from exams and given their degrees directly if they work in covid ICUs for a period of 1 year. These views were captured during a virtual conference on interdisciplinary approaches to healthcare hosted by Symbiosis International (Deemed University).
The 90,000- 1 lakh doctors who graduated from foreign universities but not cleared the national entrance exam should be provided with a similar offer, granting them registration certificates after they work in ICUs for a year. Nurses too were suggested to be given an option like the doctors.
Today’s statement from the PMO falls in line with Dr Shetty’s advice as the centre said this move will make qualified doctors and medical students available to be deployed for covid duties, increasing human resources.
Moreover, all the medical personnel working for a minimum of 100 days doing covid duties will get the special Prime Minister’s Distinguished Covid National Service Samman while also getting priority in government jobs.
The announcement comes as India is facing the brutal wrath of the deadly virus and the Centre is blamed to be doing nothing to stop or even control the tragedy.
Thousands have been dying each day along with frontline doctors. One such case took place on Saturday after a doctor died in Batra Hospital of Delhi as it did not have medical oxygen to be supplied to all patients. The incident of running out of the essential oxygen took place for the second time within one week.
Doctors have been on the receiving end of the negative effects of the grim situation and under severe depression. A resident doctor of another Delhi hospital died by suicide due to the stress he was dealing with.
With the blame game in full swing, India continues to record lakhs of cases each day. In the last 24 hours, the country registered more than 3.68 covid cases and over 3,400 fatalities.
