First batch graduates from North Delhi Municipal Council Medical College

The first batch of medical students of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation Medical College and Hindu Rao Hospital graduated on Friday. The college, which has 50 MBBS seats, had admitted its first batch of students in August 2013.

It is one of the two new medical colleges in the city. The Delhi government-run 100-seat Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Medical College in Rohini had started functioning in 2016.

Delhi has nine medical colleges, of which one is a private one, with at least 1,300 Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) seats.

“This college was founded just before the previous general elections. You are completing your medical education today. I have just completed my first term as a Parliamentarian. Hindu Rao Hospital is in my constituency and it has a rich history; even when I was the health minister in Delhi, medical students would come to me seeking internship at the hospital. And, even today it is good to see the hospital producing such good doctors; I heard most of you have already been selected for post-graduation courses,” said Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, who was invited as the chief guest for the convocation ceremony.

Forty-four students graduated in the present batch with about 22 getting through in post-graduation courses in Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education, the official said.

At the convocation ceremony, the minister said he was impressed that despite hardships, the college managed to train such good doctors. The medical college is yet to get a building. Students study in a couple of lecture halls in the hospital building.

“All the procedures and permissions for a college block and a 200-room hostel has been completed. Some of the construction has already started. It will hopefully come up in one or two years,” said a senior official from the North Corporation.

But the presence of Harsh Vardhan as the chief guest did not go down well with resident doctors who are protesting the National Medical Commission bill in the first week of August.

“There is a lot of discontentment regarding section 32 of the NMC bill allowing non-MBBS community health providers. We would have raised the issue with the minister, but we were not even allowed to go for the ceremony. So, we protested with placards at the hospital itself,” said Dr Rahul Chaudhary, president of the resident doctors’ association at Hindu Rao hospital.

First Published: Aug 09, 2019 19:11 IST