Bihar’s PMCH suspends MBBS classes, put medicos on notice after they disrupt OPD services

Nearly 180 students were asked to join their classes only on submission of an affidavit by their guardians stating that their wards would not indulge in such activities in future, said PMCH principal Dr Vidyapati Choudhary.

The MBBS classes of 2019 batch students at the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) were suspended for 15 days and students were asked to vacate hostels after they temporarily disrupted outdoor patient department (OPD) services on Monday in support of their demand for re-evaluation of their first MBBS professional exams, said college officials.

MBBS students protest at the campus of Patna Medical College & Hospital on Monday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

OPD services were affected at most of the nine government-run medical colleges in the state.

The students are on the warpath after 423 of the 1,140 MBBS students (37.10%) who appeared in the exams across nine medical colleges in Bihar failed the first university examinations, in what was the worst performance by medicos since the inception of the AKU in 2010, university officials said.

Nearly 180 students were asked to join their classes only on submission of an affidavit by their guardians stating that their wards would not indulge in such activities in future, said PMCH principal Dr Vidyapati Choudhary.

The college authorities were forced to act after the state health department stepped in Monday morning as the news of disruption of OPD services spread across most of the nine government-run medical colleges in the state, including the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital in Bhagalpur and Darbhanga Medical College Hospital.

The instructions sent out from the health brass to the college principals in institutions where the medicos were disrupting OPD services, was to rusticate the students. Since it would have affected the career of many students, the college authorities took the middle path and decided to suspend classes.

“We had to act against the medicos otherwise it will encourage gross indiscipline. This is the first time the undergraduate medical students had shown the courage to disrupt OPD services at the hospital, affecting poor patients,” said Dr Choudhary.

“We will take stern action against the students if they still do not mend their ways when they reassemble after 15 days on submission of a written declaration by their parents,” added Dr Choudhary.