MBBS students in private medical colleges finally have a chance to get fair stipends after the Supreme Court (SC) intervened in the issue. The court's intervention comes after a case against non-payment of stipends in the Army College of Medical Sciences in Delhi, where it directed the college to pay stipends and asked the National Medical Commission (NMC) to inform about the steps taken to address the issue. This decision comes as a relief to students who have long struggled with inadequate stipends during their house surgeoncy period, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
Despite stipends being a rightful part of clinical training, nearly 70% of medical colleges across the country do not pay stipends or offer amounts well below the fixed stipend, the counsel for the petitioners informed the court. The situation in Kerala is not different as the students complained about wide disparity. They complained that the stipends are decided by the college authorities and no college is paying stipends on par with the government medical college.
While the students in government medical colleges get around Rs 26,000, the stipends in the private colleges vary between Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000. A few colleges pay a stipend as low as Rs 1,500 after various deductions. The students complained that they had limited options to register their protest even though they considered it as a violation of human rights.
Speaking on this, a medical student said, "We have approached the state and national authorities to rectify the anomalies. But we are yet to see affirmative action. Most students do not wish to go for protest as they fear that it would impact their career." It must be noted that the National Human Rights Commission ordered NMC to conduct a nationwide survey, on the basis of a complaint filed by a medical student from Kozhikode, on March 7, 2023.
The students from Kerala held a campaign to ensure maximum responses to the survey held in May. However, NMC neither made the responses nor their actions taken report on the issue public so far, leading to criticisms from the health activists.
In this regard, Right to Information (RTI) activist Dr Babu KV, who has been following the issue since 2017, said, "The Supreme Court direction is a welcome move. Both NMC and its predecessor had a number of opportunities to bring parity regarding the stipend of MBBS interns. But they are either reluctant or are dragging the issue, in spite of interventions from the medical profession and NHRC, practically helping the private medical college managements." According to him, the issue stems from the NMC's vague guidelines on Compulsory Rotating Internship Regulations, which grant the power to fix stipends to the college management, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
