How the NEET counselling and NEET PG 2022 delay would affect India's medical education and healthcare system
India Today
The delay in NEET counselling and NEET PG 2022 would put an undue pressure on two batches of medical students because of the pandemic-caused delayed and the EWS quota case. Here's what happened and how it would affect India medical education and healthcare system.
NEET PG 2022 which had been originally scheduled for March 12 has now been postponed by six to eight weeks. Doctors had been protesting for months for the conduction of NEET counselling. Meanwhile, the issue of the EWS reservation quota in the medical seats was also a concern.
Now, NEET PG 2022 has been postponed to May 21 while NEET counselling began on January 27 for the earlier batch. Here’s why the NEET counselling and NEET PG 2022 were delayed and how it affects India’s healthcare system.
Here’s why the NEET counselling and NEET PG 2022 were delayed and how it affects India’s healthcare system.
Medical students need to appear for NEET PG if they are planning to specialise in subjects such as surgery, general medicine or gynaecology after completing their MBBS. NEET PG usually takes place in January but the Covid-19 pandemic caused continuous delays after which the exam was conducted in September 2021 last year.
The NEET counselling process is supposed to begin immediately after the exam so students can choose their stream and college. This process was delayed as well because of pending cases in Supreme Court regarding the reservation quota in medical seats for the economically weaker sections (EWS).
Due to the delay in both the NEET PG exam and the NEET PG counselling, medical students couldn’t start off their college courses. This resulted in a one-third short-fall of doctors across India leading to country-wide protests.
This is because while the senior medical students in the colleges were moving on to join jobs as senior residents, the fresh batch of PG medical students who are supposed to work as junior doctors in the hospitals associated with their respective colleges for training purposes were still unable to join.
