Career At Stake, Indian Medical Students In Philippines Say 'NMC Betrayed Us'

More than 10,000 Indian students who are pursuing medical courses in Philippines have alleged that the National Medical Commission, which regulates medical education in India, has betrayed them by backing out from its verbal promise and taking a contrary stand in the Delhi High Court.  

They claim that NMC had met a delegation of students on March 8 before the court hearing of March 16 and promised to take action that would be in favour of the students. But the court hearing proved otherwise.

These students are suffering due to NMC’s latest clarification of its gazette notification – Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations 2021, dated November 18, 2021, which has invalidated their one to two years of pre-medicine studies that they have been pursuing in Philippines.

On March 8, hundreds of students had gathered outside the NMC building in the Dwarka area of Delhi and protested against this clarification. NMC had called the local police to get them removed from there. When the students refused to leave the site, the police asked them to form a delegation and meet the NMC office bearers.

“We had constituted a team and met  Aruna V. Vanikar, who is the President of Undergraduate Medical Education Board and Dr Pulkesh Kumar, secretary of NMC. They had promised us in front of the SHO and our team that they would resolve the matter and give us relief very soon," said Muskan Gaba, a student, who was part of the delegation.

Simultaneously, students had filed a case at the Delhi High Court hoping that NMC would tell the court that they would withdraw the clarification. However, on March 16, when the matter came up before the court for the hearing, the NMC lawyer told the court it would not withdraw the clarification and stood by it.

"This is a betrayal of our trust. We wouldn’t have left the site and continued our protest, had they not promised to give us relief," Gaba said. 

NMC’s lawyer at the Delhi High Court, T Singh Dev, confirmed that the clarification would not be withdrawn. “The court has asked us to file our reply which we will be doing and we will not withdraw the clarification of the order,” Dev said.

Students’ lawyer Viraj Kadam said, “I think the verbal assurance was only given to students on March 8 so that they would end their protests. However, the court was of the view that it should not be implemented in a retrospective manner but since NMC’s lawyer wanted to file a written reply, the matter has now been posted for April 20,” Kadam added.

The problem started on November 18, 2021, when the NMC issued a Gazette notification and made several regulations for students who wish to go abroad to study medical courses. Since the order impacted all the foreign going candidates, some students challenged it in the Delhi High Court which is still pending.

Meanwhile, thousands of Indian medical students in Philippines sought clarification from the Indian Embassy about one of the provisions of the notification which says that any medical course offered abroad would be valid in India only if its minimum duration is 54 months.

In the Philippines, medical education is offered in two parts - BS Biology is a course conducted for 18-24 months which is followed by the 48-month doctor of medicine (MD) course.

Students wanted to know if BS Biology and MD together would be considered as one course. The embassy wrote to the NMC which, in its letter dated December 7, 2021, gave its clarification and said, “…the bridging BS course of 1.5 -2 years before MD course will not be included in the calculation of the duration of the course.”

Anuj Goyal, a student counsellor who helps students to go abroad for medical education under his firm Get My University, said, “What is more appalling is the retrospective application of the order. The NMC says that it protects the interest of students who have taken admission in MD before the date of notification, ie, November 18, 2021. But what about those students who have already taken admission in BS in 2020 and 2021?”

According to the students, the number of aspiring medicos who are affected because of the new guideline ranges between 10,000 to 15,000 and their two years of studies and hard-earned money would go waste now. 

Pravin Yadav, a student said, “All we are demanding is to give relief to those students who have already taken admissions in BS which NMC agreed to do in the meeting but in court, they have changed their stand."

Goyal said, “The students have duly followed the policy guidelines laid by the erstwhile medical council of India and it is against the principle of natural justice to implement any fresh guidelines with retrospective effects.”