The government on Friday appointed Dr Jagdish Prasad Agrawal as the vice-chairperson of the Health Profession Education Commission (HPEC), an overarching regulatory body that is expected to bring radical reforms in medical education. Dr Agrawal is a medical educationist at the Institute of Medicine.

Along with Dr Agrawal, the government also named Dr Sangita Bhandari, Dr KK Oli, Dr Gopal Acharya, Dr Shila Burma, and Mahashram Sharma as the members of the HPEC.

Dr Agrawal said he will not comment until he gets the appointment letter from the government.

The government also agreed to put a ceiling of Rs 3.5 million in MBBS education which will be revised in a year. Once the revision is made, the fee ceiling will undergo changes based on inflation of Nepal Rastra Bank every two years.

The government has also decided to decrease medical seats-gradually from 150 to 135 then to 115 before limiting it to 100 seats over the next three years. The commission has been asked to develop Health Profession Education Act within next three months.

Meanwhile, Dr Govinda KC has said that the government should ensure that Prime Minister leads the HPEC. Going against the recommendations of the Health Profession Education Policy drafted by Dr Kedar Bhakta Mathema-led panel, the meeting of the Social Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Home Minister Bam Dev Gautam, had picked Education Minister Yadav as commission’s chairperson. The Mathema report had suggested the prime minister as the chairperson of the commission-the highest regulatory body of the health profession education.

“This is against the agreement. We have made substantial compromises on our part for reaching the agreement. Not a single change, however minor, is acceptable to us including the composition of commission,” said Dr KC.

He warned that if government does not heed to the demand, he will begin his hunger strike from 4 pm on Saturday.