Pravasi Legal Cell, an NGO has moved to Delhi High Court in regards to Ukraine returnee medical students seeking direction to Union of India, National Medical Commission (NMC) to allow them to join Indian medical colleges.
The petition seeks direction to the respondents to take appropriate steps to enable and facilitate continuance of studies for Ukraine-returned Indian medical students in the medical colleges in India from the stage their studies in Ukraine have been disrupted on account of the war.
Plea submits that thousands of Indian medical aspirants prefer Ukraine for medical education due to various factors including affordability, quality of education, and the license to practice abroad. In Ukraine, Indian medical students also have no compulsion to give any medical entrance exam if they clear NEET. All the above factors make Ukraine a comfortable option for Indians to study Medicine.
The plea further states that the plight of the Indian medical students rescued from war-hit Ukraine has the potential of disrupting their careers who have already gone through the trauma of being in the war zone and at present, there are no norms or regulations in India to accommodate medical students, who were studying abroad and had to return to India midway, in Indian medical colleges in between an academic session.
The Constitution of India guarantees the Fundamental Right to Life under Article 21 which should mean and include the right to access and continuance to medical education in India by students of India who are forced to leave their medical education abroad due to the present scenario, reads the plea.
Earlier, the Indian Medical Association(IMC) also recommended the Centre to accommodate these students in Indian medical colleges.
"We don't want to lose those 20,000 to-be-doctors who have faced so many difficulties on their way back to India and already they are in mental agony and kind of nervousness. Not giving them the opportunity, these students will lose their two years, resulting in their bleak future so we have requested the government to take it into account," said Dr Jayesh M Lele, General Secretary of IMC.
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