State medical council begins inspection of CPS-affiliated hospitals

Mumbai: While the state medical education department is yet to decide the fate of College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS) courses in the state, the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has started conducting inspections of the CPS-affiliated institutions in Maharashtra that refused inspection last year.

The development comes at a time when the state education department has been contemplating stopping CPS courses in Maharashtra and compensating for the loss of seats by increasing around 1,000 seats of Diplomate National Board (DNB) courses.

“Out of the 74 institutions, who had refused inspection last year, many came forward allowing the MMC inspection. Our team started the inspection last week and so far inspected 34-45 hospitals that were running CPS-affiliated diplomas in child health and diploma obstetrics and gynaecology courses,” said a senior MMC official. The inspection is supposed to get over this week after which the report will be submitted.

MMC visited 120 hospitals in the state that were running CPS-affiliated courses last year for inspection. Out of the 120, 74 had refused inspection, and two institutions were found to be non-operational. In the remaining 44 hospitals, MMC’s inspecting team found severe infrastructural and faculty deficiencies and violations of the National Medical Commission (NMC) minimum standard requirement.

Dr Girish Maindarkar, the president of the CPS, said the MMC inspections began three to four days back. “Earlier in June, the institutions had on their individual level, written to the medical education department that they are ready for the inspections by the MMC. The institutions informed us that the inspection has begun. We will look forward to the report now,” he said.

Based on the MMC report, medical secretary Ashwini Joshi in January and February wrote two letters to the union health ministry on the state of affairs at CPS and why admissions to its courses should be stopped.

In the letters, Joshi stated that CPS offered 1,028 seats in the state. Apart from government and private medical colleges, these courses are also being run in stand-alone hospitals without permission from the government.

The association of CPS-affiliated institutes then met union minister Nitin Gadkari and sought his intervention, after which Gadkari wrote a letter on March 9 to chief secretary Manukumar Srivastava, alleging that Joshi had a reputation for creating hurdles in the departments she worked in. Joshi’s office then sent a rebuttal to Srivastava, defending her stand and citing examples of Rajasthan and Gujarat that had stopped admissions to CPS courses.

On March 14, the CPS received the first show-cause notice. The CPS representatives met Joshi but were asked for further clarifications and given a second hearing date on March 24. The CPS approached the Bombay high court challenging the show-cause notice but its petition was dismissed.

Meanwhile, the state medical education department kept issuing show-cause notices. The hearings in the CPS case are complete, and the medical education department will give its judgement in the coming week.