This is one strike that has even the teachers supporting the students, and for once it is not about pay hikes. For nearly a week now, 14 government medical colleges in Maharashtra have seen demonstrations and appeals by students to make the health authorities aware of their plight.

Over the years, various post graduate courses in the state have been derecognised by the Medical Council of India due to a shortage of teachers. These teachers have either retired or gone in for more lucrative options. This has had the undergraduate students and medical interns who want to pursue higher education worried. With the doctor-patient ratio ebbing in India compared to other countries, students are justifiably concerned about their future. Ergo, the strikes.

Full-time teachers at medical colleges have met MP Priya Dutt and celebrities like Shabana Azmi and are set to join the strike. Not wanting to paralyse the services at government hospitals, they are waiting for the government’s reaction, but are clear about their support for the cause.

“If teachers don’t join in the stir now, it will be too late to save medical education,” says Dr Shailesh Mohite, who heads the Forensic Science Department at the T N Medical College and Bombay Municipal Corporation-run Nair hospital. Also the secretary of the Welfare Association of Full Time Teachers, Mohite paints a dramatic picture that envisages established government medical hospitals functioning as primary health centres.

From 1,900 in 2001, the post graduate seats have come down to 411 today because the PG courses have failed to meet the MCI requirements. For instance, at Pune’s B J Medical College and Sassoon Government Hospital, an MCI inspection team found that the number of teachers for a PG course in biochemistry was less than 50 per cent and subsequently derecognised the course. “Only now have we been able to fill the vacancies,” says Dr Anand Malik, dean of B J Medical College.

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