Ukraine returned medical students: Plight continues; All eyes on Supreme Court

While the Supreme Court hearing on Ukraine returned medical students is expected on November 11, we spoke to a few affected medicos and FAIMA National President Dr Rohan Krishnan about the crisis, read here to know more.

Its been months now, since Ukraine returned medicos have been demanding to be accommodated to Indian medical colleges as a one-time measure, but till now Centre has not taken any concrete step in this direction. The case is going on in the Supreme Court where the Centre said that the National Medical Council (NMC) does not have any policy to allow so, also, the Centre added that it will affect the medical education standard of India.

Few students have already returned back to the war-torn country Ukraine as they saw no hope here in India and also recently many Ukraine universities have announced offline examinations.

When we spoke to Gourab who is from West Bengal and currently pursuing MBBS from BSMU Chernivtsi, he said, "Our demands are very simple and clear - accommodate these Ukraine returned medical students in different pvt./deemed/state medical colleges. As of now there will be maximum of 8-10K students so it is not a big task. If the government can't accommodate us then give us some relaxation from the rules of NMC i.e, allow for the transfer of students to other universities in other European countries (which is prohibited according to NMC 2021 ACT)."

"Another demand is we want online classes from Ukraine and observation/clinical rotations in Indian medical colleges. We especially the 2nd year students aren't allowed to take a transfer so what about us? Also, the government is coming up with a" Mobility program" which can never be a solution what if the war won't stop in recent times what will happen to our degree? Also, we want validation of our online classes to date and allow us to take the transfer to other European countries which is possible according to ECTS system of Europe. Accomodation/tranfer can be the only option because we have spent a huge chunk of the corpus in Ukraine as of now so starting from scratch is not at all possible," he added.

We want solutions from government, says Ukraine returned student

Deepak Kumar, a medical student at Ternopil National Medical University who hails from Bihar in India, said, “The problem we are facing is that we are doing online classes for 8 months now, the war is still going on and many of our friends have returned to Ukraine also, so the question is how long we are going to continue with online classes when it seems that war is also not ending any time soon. So we demand from the government to provide us with a solution so that we can continue our education here till the war going on, or they must run some supplementary batch or whatever they think is right but they must provide a solution.”

“However, instead of coming up with solutions, whenever there is an election, our names are being taken and the issue is being raised to take the credit but their focus is not on our future, or on how we will complete our degrees. When the government took us back to India they said that they will do the necessary things for us, but nothing happened. Even the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also assured in Parliament but now no government or NMC is considering our issues."

Policies can be amended if govt is willing to provide solution

On the Centre's reply to Supreme Court that there are no NMC policies to accommodate these students, he said, "NMC has an act that if any country faces war-like situations, the students can be given some relaxation. If there is no such policy then also policies can be amended as the current government does as per the requirements. So, even if there is no policy, the government can make a new policy or make modifications to the existing ones."

Also, there is one more big issue here, some aspirants are still not aware that NMC had issued a new draft on November 18, 2021, as per which if one is doing medical courses from a foreign country, they must complete the internship and get the license from that country. Earlier, if students used to complete the degree in foreign countries it included everything including internships. So, now if we complete degrees in 6 years, and add an internship period it will be completed in 7 years. Also, since, we are doing online classes, now we need to undergo two years of internship training in India which was only one year earlier. So, 7 and 2 years means, it will take a total of 9 years to complete the MBBS degree which is not right, he said.

"Even Supreme Court had directed the Centre to create a portal for Ukraine-returned medical students so that they will have information about transfer and mobility. The portal should maintain information about the countries where the students can move along with the information on available seats and other such things so that the students can get the proper official information and transparency can be maintained."

"However, the government didn’t come up with anything like this on the next hearing, so in most of the hearings, the government is not coming with what they have been directed to do, and even the court is not taking any strict stand against the Centre for not following the court orders, so the court is appearing as biased somewhere. Hence, not everything is looking right and NMC’s behaviour is such as they want to say that the students should not go to these foreign countries to study." 

He said, “We want accommodation here as a supplementary batch or one-time measure. Even the Parliamentary standing committee also recommended to the Centre that these students should be accommodated amid the war situation. We are not asking for support for free also, we are ready to pay the amount which we were paying in Ukraine if the government can start a supplementary batch and the government can definitely do this if they are willing to help us.”

“We still have hope from Supreme Court that we will get some solution from the court, even if not the exact solution which we are looking for and let’s see what happens in the next hearing which is scheduled for November 11, 2022.”

We must stop nexus of agents sending Indian students to these countries, says Dr Rohan Krishnan

Shiksha also spoke to FAIMA National President Dr Rohan Krishnan on the issue and on the question that what he will say about the demand for increasing MBBS seats to avoid a situation like the Ukraine crisis, he said, “Ukraine crisis is not going to be resolved if we increase the MBBS seats because we have around 90,000 MBBS seats and around 16 lakh appear for the NEET exam, so we cannot increase the seats to 16 lakhs. It will deteriorate the quantity and quality of doctors like anything. "Secondly, the people who are going to Ukraine or China, mostly belong to Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities, and who were not have ideas about medical education in India. The nexus of agents working from those countries provide students to these countries and the universities there provide them INR 2-3 lakh and per student, they are earning INR 5 lakhs, “ he added.

In a year, if they send around 50 students, they earn INR 2.5 crores. That is the nexus which is going on right now, we have to stop such nexus, the government should say to these colleges to maintain a minimum standard and if not then the government should release an advisory that students must avoid these colleges, which are not maintaining minimum standard because the students also feel cheated after paying INR 25 to INR 30 lakh, added FAIMA National President.

They go there and they don’t have any option to come back, now what happens is that they are not being taught anything, there is no teaching there, no hospital, in a shopping mall they are running these courses like a shop in Ukraine. So, what can you expect, what they will learn when they come back, they are not even able to clear the FMGE exam which is a very simple and easy exam even a third-year UG student of India can crack that exam. Then, what’s the point of allowing innocent youngsters of 17 to 18 years to go to these countries to pursue medical courses, he further said.

On Centre's stand that if they will accommodate Ukraine returned medical students to Indian medical colleges as a one-time measure, it will affect the medical education standard of the country, he said, “I don’t think that this is possible, Centre is not going to do anything like this because they don’t have the infrastructure, teachers or anything. It is impossible to even think about this, it is not going to happen and whoever said anything like this is only a political gimmick.”

Now, all eyes are on Supreme Court’s direction on this case.

Read more:

• Indian medical students back in Ukraine refuse to leave war-torn country
• Leave Ukraine at the earliest: Indian Embassy to students, other Indians