Foreign Medical Graduates staging a protest outside the Andhra Pradesh Medical Council Registrar’s office, in Vijayawada on Monday.
| Photo Credit: Giri KVS
Chaos ensued for hours outside the Andhra Pradesh Medical Council (APMC) office on January 6, Monday, as Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) staged a protest in Vijayawada once again demanding Permanent Registrations to those who completed their one-year internship and appointment of a chairman, even as a posse of police officers tried to calm the situation.
In the narrow corridor outside the Registrar’s office at the APMC, located on the premises of the Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences, around 100 FMGs gathered, raising slogans and refusing to leave until Dr. Ramesh, who locked himself inside, came out. After almost three hours, after the police officers convinced them, the FMGs left the place. However, they continued the protest on the premises till evening.
Some of the FMGs, belonging to the batches affected by the pandemic, are those who have been waiting for PRs since June, while some others are those who have received their internship allotment letters recently. They joined the protest to express their discontent at the allotment of three years of internships.
The National Medical Commission, in a June 19 notification, issued for foreign medical students who came to India during the pandemic, had said those who have compensatory certificates from their parent universities and took their final exam offline should be allotted one-year internship.
The FMGs said despite having these certificates, they were being told to undergo two years of internship. Besides, the graduates said while all other States were following the above rule, it was only A.P. which was insisting on two or three years of internship.
“The Registrar is deciding the internship duration as per his whims and fancies. Who will send their children to foreign countries for medical studies if there are so many delays?” asked a parent, Madhu Sudhan, who came from Kurnool along with his daughter.
The graduates felt that the situation would not have arisen had the council been formed by now. ‘‘It has been eight months since the new government has come and the APMC is yet to be formed. Without a council, a 25-member body, it has become a one-man show,’‘ they said.
Another parent, Murali, who joined the protest, said his daughter, who was given the PR by the Telangana Medical Council and had already worked in Delhi and Hyderabad for three years in the private sector, was told to undergo a three-year internship once again if she wanted to set up a clinic in the State. “This is laughable. How can you ask a practising doctor to undergo internship again?” Mr. Murali wondered.
Notification
Their third chief demand was that the APMC should withdraw the notification that asked medical colleges to collect affidavits from FMGs at the time of the beginning of their internships.
Dr. Ramesh agreed to talk to them later in the day and asked them to write their demands on a paper. The third demand was met with immediately, as the Registrar issued a notification in this regard. Regarding the issuance of their PRs, he told them that he would go to Delhi and speak with the NMC officials.
However, the FMGs felt they received the same response many times earlier and were planning to meet Jana Sena Party officials on Tuesday.
Published – January 06, 2025 10:08 pm IST
