KOLKATA: Medical colleges in Bengal are awaiting a go-ahead from the state health department after the National Medical Commission (NMC) recommended the reopening of all institutes in the country on or before December 1. The Union health secretary on Wednesday wrote to health secretaries of all states and Union Territories to take necessary steps.
“Since the NMC recommends reopening of medical colleges across the country around the same time, we expect a directive from the health department soon,” said a source at Calcutta National Medical College. “We expect the NMC to also issue an SOP on re-opening soon and share it with all concerned,” said Rajendra Pandey, vice-chancellor West Bengal University of Health Sciences who is also the head pf nephrology at IPGMER.
All MBBS classes have been gone online for the past eight months to minimize the spread of the novel coronavirus. Though clinical training is not only important but also essential for MBBS part I and II, students have mised out on clinical posting for those eight months. “After the second semester, undergraduate students need to enter clinical domain from classrooms. They need to be in wards, OPDs and OTs for clinical training. While reopening classes are important so that they are not deprived of their training, we must also have strategies in place for their safety,” said Manas Gumta, head of general surgery at College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital. The NMC has also advised medical colleges to ensure they have enough number of non-Covid beds to facilitate training of undergraduate students.
In Kolkata, apart from Medical College and Hospital and NRS Medical College, which have 660 and 110 Covid beds respectively, the rest of the institutes do not have facilities for Covid treatment.
IPGMER (Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research) has been holding regular parent-teacher online meetings to discuss the re-opening of on-campus classes. While parents are eager that their wards go back to classes, they are equally apprehensive about infection. “Entering hospital wards during the pandemic will be like going to a war zone for these students. Adequate protection and assurance that the students will not be left to fend for themselves in case they get infected, along with a robust SOP and dos and don’ts should come from authorities concerned before classes re-open,” said Diptendra Sarkar, professor of surgery and part of student affairs team at IPGMER. Currently, most MBBS students have vacated their hostels. College administrators said sooner the health department issued a directive and SOP the quicker they would be able to act on them as only a few days are left for the December 1 deadline.