After sufficient warning and cautioning, Russia commenced full-scale war against Ukraine. Troops’ deployment and warfare equipment installation happened in steady phases quite in public gaze. No one with stakes seemed to care. Incidentally, 20,000 families, whose wards were in and around Ukraine studying medicine, suddenly woke up from slumber and screamed ‘Help!’ They could have jolly well packed and come back home safely well in time.
Now after their arduous return home, there is news of the Governments accommodating them in the Indian medical colleges where they couldn’t have entered anyway. This out-of-turn gesture for the Ukraine medical college students reminds of the Ponzi scam victims that made big time news a couple of years ago and for all the wrong reasons. It is an established fact that greedy people frantic to have investments quadrupling in a single year had lapped up unrealistic, tall promises made by Ponzi scamsters who displayed fantastic schemes or showcased product prototypes that would never be feasible or attainable, no matter what. The Ponzi tricks these crooks use regularly are specifically meant for excessively greedy and gullible pinheads who would only scream ‘Foul’ only after the daylight robbery is over and money gone. Some fellows erroneously named the whole Ponzi fraud matter as ‘chit fund scam’. Chit fund schemes are actually legally permissible and set up by close groups for mutual benefit. The Ponzi scam-related woes of the foolish victims forced the Odisha Government to get on the job of nabbing the crooks right away. As the enforcement zeroed in on some fugitive Ponzi scamsters, the latter either surrendered or went missing. Some cried until tears ran dry confessing to having eaten up all money collected from hapless people too crazy to become rich overnight. The compassionate Union and regional Governments had frighteningly melting hearts. The Odisha Government promised the victims relief after recovering money from the crooks. They also had gone a few steps ahead by promising relief money from the state exchequer by way of supporting the poor. A judicial commission was set up and the chairman, a real good former High Court judge, made the first logical remark that the State should not empty public coffers to placate greedy people who had never sought State endorsement for their quick moneymaking misadventures. Four years rolled by and some scamsters nabbed by law enforcement agencies coughed out good enough dough to be distributed according to economic distress and status of victims. Strangely, however, the commission was shut down without notice and the former judge boss was not consulted once thereafter by the State authorities.
A similar story has surfaced with regard to Indian students studying medicine where fees are extremely small and the host countries have hundreds of empty colleges to take in those weak students from developing countries. It is well-known that substandard, non-merit students from wealthy families land in East Europe, Russia and China offering medicine degrees for only songs. Ukraine, a former Soviet State, has too many colleges which would go empty if Africans and Indians don’t fill them up. Currently, there are nearly 20,000 Indian students pursuing the coveted degree only in Ukraine. These aspiring doctors are aware that they cannot once pass the Indian mandatory tests. Further, the course in Ukraine has very simple tests to let in more than it should and charge one fifth the cost one has to dish out in India for studying at private medical colleges. A 5-year medical degree course costs as little as 15 to 20 lakh Indian rupees in Ukraine. But on return home, these degrees are directed at the dump-yards for being pieces of garbage paper that will never make the degree holder eligible to practise medicine in India. Unless they pass the mandatory licentiate Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) test, these degree holders are considered lesser medicos than pharmacists or compounders in India. Interestingly, Ayurveda and homoeopathy doctors are treated above these East Europe-trained doctors. The only benefit they reap is to get a bride or groom easily.
The other amusing fact is that only a miniscule 10 to 15% of the Ukraine/East Europe medical graduates pass the mandatory Indian test to be branded fit enough doctors. Ninety per cent fail miserably. So, the majority of them eventually migrate to countries in the wilderness of backward Africa including countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia where there is acute shortage of medical professionals at point in time.
It is also true when the initial advisories were issued to students in Ukraine about the imminent war, not many students or their parents in India paid much heed. Slowly, flights became expensive and finally impossible to leave Ukraine as the battles became fierce and intense across the country. The Indian Government began the rescue operations by exhausting all diplomatic techniques and relationships with both Russia and Ukraine and has been successful in bringing back most of the stranded students. The humane Russian authorities have made great gestures by holding up invasive action periodically only to facilitate foreign students’ smooth return to native countries.
The Odisha Government headed by Naveen Patnaik did go out of the way to extend the longest helping arm to bring back home distressed Odisha students from Ukraine bearing all costs, travel, stay and more.
Now, the frantic SOS scream by Ukraine medical college students and their parents in India has developed into an overwhelming demand for rehabilitation of the students, most of whom are wealthy but unfit to pass the stringent tests so as to complete the medical course in India. When both the Central and some State Governments are going overboard to accommodate these ‘failed in India’, quarter-baked ‘would-be medicos’ by placing them in regular medical colleges, real meritorious students and their poor parents feel upset and aggrieved as unfit, weak students would become doctors eventually to aggravate diseases and kill people owing to their poor medicine knowledge and clinical skills. Scarce public funds cannot be splurged on the undeserving and unfit youths who took the shortcut, easy way to become medical professionals by hook or by crook. At the most, they can take the entrance tests with a grace scoring of 10% extra not for any other grand achievement than having been mentally torn down in the midst of a full-blown war.
The Government has once before blundered on the unworthy Ponzi victims issue. This time around, wealthy people and their non-merit wards must be ignored and left to fend for themselves. That would be good for all.