In view of the unimpressive past track record of the Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs), the Union Health Ministry is treading cautiously as it remains non-responsive to the repeated request of around 20,000 such degree holders to rope in the battle against Covid-19 pandemic.
The graduates who complete their MBBS from countries like China, Ukraine, Russia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Nepal and Kazakhstan have to clear the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam to practice in India, as mandated by the MCI. MBBS graduates from the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand do not need to write this exam.
The Ministry strongly feels that it cannot set a wrong precedent and risk the lives of the patients including those suffering with Covid-19 at their hands only because there is a shortage of doctors in some hospitals. The data available indicates that only a fraction of those who write the FMG test, pass every year. For instance, in 2018-19, only 15.10 per cent of the applicants cleared the exam.
The All India Foreign Medical Graduates Association has written twice to the Ministry asking to allow them to work as doctors without the mandatory bridge exam that they otherwise have to clear to practice in India.
They have sought licenses to work as doctors and aid in the fight against Covid-19.
“Government wants to maintain a certain standard which is why FMG cannot be allowed to practice without the mandatory test. There is a reason why that test was introduced in the first place.
“Moreover, each year, more than 80 per cent of these graduates are unable to pass the test, which means they are not fit to practice,” said an official from the Ministry.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) also agreed with the Ministry”s viewpoint.
“These doctors who complete their MBBS from other countries come from a different kind of background and different kind of discipline that is maintained in medical colleges. We have to know how competent they are, which is why the test was introduced and there is nothing wrong in that,” said Dr R.V. Asokan, honorary secretary-general of the IMA.
Some of the FMGs, who have written to the government, failed the test by a margin while the others could not write the exam because it was postponed this year due to the pandemic, said the official from the Ministry.
