“The medical colleges cannot treat MBBS and foreign medical graduates differently," the Supreme Court noted on Monday, April 1, while hearing a matter regarding the non-payment of stipends for doctors undergoing their MBBS internships.
This statement by the apex court echoes the concerns of several medical graduates across the country who pursued their MBBS degree from a foreign medical institute and are now doing their Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI).
The issue has been highlighted several times in the past that during the course of their CRMI — foreign medical graduates (FMGs) are either not being paid any stipend at all or are receiving an amount significantly lower than what MBBS graduates from Indian institutes are receiving.
Now, with the intervention by the Supreme Court, FMGs are expecting a positive change in the situation.
“The National Medical Commission (NMC) has already released a notice in the past saying that FMGs should be paid the same amount as Indian graduates. However, the ground reality is quite different. Most FMGs do not get any stipends. In a few states, students are even paying an unspecified amount to get internships. In a situation like this, we hope that the intervention will bring some change,” said Dr Ritesh Rathee, who completed his MBBS course in China.
As per the provisions under the NMC's Compulsory Rotatory Medical Internship Regulations 2021, foreign medical graduates are to be given equivalent stipends and other facilities, same as Indian medical graduates, as fixed by their respective institutes/ state.
What has happened so far?
The issue came up while the Supreme Court was hearing a plea that almost 70 per cent of the medical colleges do not pay stipends to MBBS interns or pay an amount lesser than that prescribed by respective authorities.
In September 2023, the court had asked the NMC to provide the details of all medical colleges across India and whether or not the colleges are paying MBBS interns and what steps is it taking to ensure compliance with the norm of paying internship stipend.
However, on Monday, April 1, the court noted that NMC has not yet provided complete data.
Speaking to EdexLive, Advocate Tanvi Dubey, who appeared for the petitioners during the hearing, said “I submitted that the FMGs are also not being provided stipends across most states. During my interaction with the students, I saw that these students are putting in the same amount of working hours, if not more, than the Indian medical graduates. Still, their stipends are significantly lesser.”
After hearing the submissions, the Supreme Court has asked the NMC to submit a tabulated chart explaining the status of stipends being paid to both FMGs and Indian medical graduates, across all medical colleges in India.
The next hearing has been scheduled for May 6.
