PANAJI: Around 684 diploma courses of various Government and private Medical colleges nationwide have been upgraded to post-graduate degree courses by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare but none from Goa Medical College figure in the list as the State administration failed to apply for it before the cut-off day.
The option to upgrade the diploma course seats to MD and MS seats was allowed as a one-time measure by the Union Health Ministry after the Medical Council of India had decided to do away with diploma courses altogether. The deadline for applying to doing so was fixed for January 25 but the GMC administration failed to meet it, a lapse which was first reported by The Goan.
The GMC thus forfeited the opportunity to convert around 26 diploma seats to post-graduate seats with no compulsion to add any further infrastructure to its existing setup. Presently, the GMC has an approved intake capacity of 124 degree students - 76 MD and 22 MS seats. During its inspection, MCI had also wanted that infrastructure be improved on different parameters such as lecture room, auditorium and classrooms.
Citing the lapse, the Government had issued a show-cause an subsequently removed Dr Pradeep Naik from the position of GMC Dean pinning the blame on him for the lapse.
In 2015, the Medical Council of India had allowed the GMC to increase its seats but insisted on full strength of professors, associate professors and assistant professors in the speciality wings.
The GMC would have got an opportunity to run courses in Masters Surgery (MS) and general medicine (MD) in specialisations such as Radio Diagnosis, Paediatrics, Gynaecology, Physiology, Preventive and Social Medicine, Anaesthesiology, Psychological Medicine.
