Missed 4 months of curriculum, Gandhi Jr docs suggest new schedule to accommodate non-Covid patients

Hyderabad: The postgraduate doctors of Hyderabad’s Gandhi Hospital, the nodal centre for COVID-19 in Telangana, are demanding decentralization of COVID cases to other government-run hospitals in the state. The junior doctors claim that due to the pandemic they have missed almost four-months of the curriculum. They have now come up with a new curriculum that can serve both COVID and non-COVID patients.

“It is the responsibility of all doctors to serve COVID-19 patients at this peak time. But our government is forgetting that Gandhi Hospital is also a teaching hospital with over 200 postgraduates,” said the students.

They said they are not being trained in surgeries and various techniques, which is part of the curriculum, during this period. "We have not raised our voices for the past four months but it is time for the government to understand the magnitude of the issue,” they said.

“We do not know how many more months we will have to miss our curriculum. The thought of this makes us wonder why Gandhi postgraduates should suffer,” they said, calling the government decision an injustice.

The junior doctors have prepared and submitted a schedule to the Telangana government. They claim that it will allow all postgraduate students of MCI-recognised institutions in the state to serve COVID-19 patients without missing their curriculum and also provide adequate quarantine time for the students.

The schedule states that one or two separate buildings should be allotted and all COVID-19 cases decentralised from Gandhi to those buildings. All postgraduate students from all departments from all MCI-recognised colleges should be allotted duties in these buildings on a bi-weekly basis. The schedule also suggests dividing the students into four groups: one group will comprise students who will form the working group for two weeks, the second group will comprise students on quarantine for two weeks, while the other two groups will comprise students in their respective hospitals resuming their regular duties.

The students also demanded accommodation facilities for those on duty or on quarantine. After the quarantine period, all postgraduate students should be allowed to go to their respective colleges to resume their regular OP and IP duties, they demanded. “In this way, all students get equal exposure to all types of cases and also do not lose their curriculum,” the students said.