by reciprocal arrangement with Star of Mysore
- Medical Council team visiting next month
Mysore, Nov 18: The State Government is busy with plans of opening new medical Colleges, laying their foundation stones and posing for photographs. In total contrast, Mysore Medical College, the first to be started way back in 1924 at the Victoria Hospital, Bangalore and later moving to its present location in Mysore, is heading towards closure. It is not even attracting anybody's attention, as it were.
The reason for the college to reach that stage is said to be the ban on recruitment of staff from 1982 over a period of 18 years. At present, nearly 45 per cent of posts are vacant in the college, it is learnt. Some departments have been reportedly closed. That feature of the college is not new. The students have been taking it in their stride to go through the courses in the midst of various deficiencies in the college for many, many years.
There is anxiety all over in the wake of the visit of a team from the Medical Council of India (MCI) to the College, scheduled for tomorrow. It is the MCI which accords the permission to medical colleges for functioning.
Consequences
After the MCI visited the college in 1990 and took note of the paucity of teaching faculty and infrastructural facilities in the college, the student strength had been reduced from 202 to 150. Following its next visit towards the end of the 1990s, the MCI had further reduced the number of student intake to 100.
During its visit to the college in 2002, MCI had directed the authorities to set right the deficiencies and had also served a warning. However the government looked the other way, not bothered about the consequences.
The only response from the powers that be was that applications had been invited for the posts of faculty but there was poor response. They did not bestow serious thoughts on what action was required to be taken. As a result, out of 312 sanctioned posts of teachers at different levels, 140 posts are vacant. Further the number of retirees is also rising year after year.
In addition to 41 posts out of 82 professors being vacant, only 49 Assistant professors are working in place 82 posts of that category.
In place of 144 lecturers, only 82 are in service. Posts of 14 Junior Laboratory Technicians, 12 Senior Laboratory Technicians, 75 'D' group employees, drivers, typists and medical record keepers are vacant in the college, it is learnt.
The MCI team visiting after Dec. 7 is expected to inspect Krishnarajendra Hospital, Cheluvamba Hospital and the Medical College in the sprawling 35 acres.
The moves of MCI to further reduce the student strength continues to be causing anxiety. Some are of the view that the MCI may extend the deadline for the college to meet the deficiencies. It is more or less certain that the Council may decide on applying lock to the college if the deficiencies are not rectified within the deadline of three months.
If the present state of affairs continue, 65 per cent of the posts will be vacant by the year 2009. The government is learnt to be contemplating on raising the monthly salary to Rs. 75,000 in order to attract faculty in the pre-clinical departments of Anatomy Biochemistry, Physiology and Forensic science.
Discrimination
That is said to have not found favour with the faculty of clinical departments of ENT, Dermatology, Orthopedics, Dentistry and others. They are critical of the Government saying that it is heading to create a division in the college by discriminating one section in the matter of salaries to staff working in the same institution.
College Principal Dr. B.C. Vastrad today told Star of Mysore that the MCI will be satisfied if the government recruits 16 professors and 11 Asst. Professors and 12 lecturers.