Miscellaneous
Janaki Medical College loses MBBS seats
The Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine has decided to stop the admission process at the Janakpur-based Janaki Medical College.Manish Gautam
The decision follows inspections by members of the IoM, Nepal Medical Council and the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority of the medical school.
On January 1, Nepal Medical Council, which regulates medical studies and doctors, had barred the JMC from enrolling students although the IoM had cut down the seats from 100 to 80. The JMC moved the apex court against the decision and the case is sub judice. The JMC quota had been falling every year. The college, established in 2003 with an annual intake of 80 MBBS students, is notorious as the ‘worst’ medical school in the country. In 2012, the NMC had scrapped 25 of the 100 MBBS seats.
Multiple sources at the IoM, who are members of the faculty board, confirmed the zero seat allocation to the JMC. “Following an intense discussion, we reached the conclusion that the JMC cannot produce doctors,” said a source.
Investigations have shown the JMC does not have the required number of professors and teachers while the hospital lacks adequate facilities. It receives almost no patients at all but fake patients are shown to inspection teams. The college hires ‘standing faculties’, humorously called ‘khade babas’ from India, during an inspection.
The CIAA is learnt to have been pressing the IoM and the NMC to conduct strict inspections and take harsh action if the college is found to have breached the rules.
In February 2013, students from the JMC came to Kathmandu to draw the attention of the IoM and the NMC to the “incompetent management” of their school that greatly affected their studies.
Meanwhile, the faculty board also decided to increase the seats of Nepal Army and Kist Medical College, Gwarko from 100 to 150 and 80 to 135 respectively. Among the seven colleges affiliated to the IoM, the seats of the five others have fallen.