Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

We won't budge until Govt. makes stand clear: medicos

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI APRil 27. Agitating medical and dental college students kept up their penchant for novel protests, organising and participating in blood donation camps in government hospitals and continuing their parallel outpatient centres on the fifth day of the Statewide strike today.

About 250 students donated blood as part of the protest, supplying a former student union leader with the punch line, "You are donating blood today, but the agitation should continue even if you have to shed blood."

The students have been protesting against a reported Government move to allow more private medical and dental colleges in the State, and say they will not stop unless the Government makes its stance on the issue clear.

Following a recent court verdict in favour of a private organisation to run a medical college in Tamil Nadu, the medicos fear that it would give authorities a case to open the floodgates for more such institutions.

Confirming their fears and provoking them head-on into a Statewide agitation was a 2001 Government Order (No. 211) they discovered a few days ago, which sought to allow private medical and dental colleges in rural and backward areas in Tamil Nadu.

In arguing the State's case for private institutions, the Government admitted in the GO that there was a shortage of doctors in rural areas. It stated that while the Ninth Plan target for doctor-patient ratio was 1:1,000, Tamil Nadu had only one doctor for every 2,000 patients.

The Government further argued that it would be "prohibitively expensive" for the State to open more colleges and "therefore it is decided to consider the request of private organisations for issue of no-objection certificates to start medical and dental colleges in backward areas."

It would go a long way in improving medical facilities in these areas, and the large number of students moving to neighbouring States for medical education could now study in Tamil Nadu itself, it said.

To promote the growth of private colleges, it exempted these institutions from a stipulation that new colleges should not come up within 100 km from existing colleges, but only if the proposed location was in backward or rural areas.

The students counter that the doctor-patient ratio in the State is 1:1200 against the WHO recommendation of 1:3500. "We have more than enough doctors now and do not need more medical colleges," says C. Karunakaran, former State president of the Tamil Nadu Medical and Dental colleges association.

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