Govt okays ordinance on medical education
Kathmandu, October 23
The Cabinet today endorsed the ordinance on medical education and decided to send it to President Bidhya Devi Bhandari for authentication.
The ordinance is in accordance with the agreement reached with Dr Govinda KC, senior orthopaedic surgeon at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital.
“Everyone agreed to endorse the ordinance but we have yet to decide when to send it to the president,” Minister of Information and Communication Mohan Bahadur Basnet told THT.
The Medical Education Bill bars opening of new medical colleges in Kathmandu Valley for the next 10 years. It also states that a hospital has to run for at least three years to be eligible to apply for a medical college affiliation.
The other provisions of the bill are: A university must have its own medical college and hospital before being considered for affiliation to open a new medical school; a university can grant affiliation to only five medical colleges that should be based in the same province as the university; the affiliation will not be given to more than one medical college in the same district and 75 per cent of the seats in government medical colleges should be allocated for scholarships and they should be increased gradually.
The draft ordinance was finalised by the government’s talks team comprising former health minister Gagan Thapa and advocate Om Prakash Aryal and Dr Govinda KC’s team.
The ordinance incorporates all the recommendations made by the Mathema-led panel and Dr Govinda KC’s suggestions.
Dr KC had staged 13th fast-unto-death protest demanding an end to irregularities in the health and medical education sectors. He had demanded immediate passage of the Medical Education Bill as per the recommendations made by the Mathema-led panel.
Dr KC ended his 13th hunger strike on the 14th day after signing a 10-point agreement with the government on October 18. He had threatened to start his protest again if the government failed to endorse the bill through ordinance.
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