Kathmandu, January 30:

Parents of over 3,000 students studying in China are infuriated with the way the government is handling the issue of internship.

According to Nepal Medical Council, an average 250 MBBS graduates appear for the licencing examination conducted every three months. The government’s abrupt decision to bar the students from internship has affected them. The government keeps on changing the decision and parents are not sure how to go about it.

“It keeps on changing,” said Pushpa Ratna Shakya, president of the Parents Group, a group of the parents. He argued that there is no point in barring the students from undertaking internship while there are enough beds in hospitals and consultants ready to help them.

Since the last several days, parents of students studying MBBS in China have organised themselves and have launched a protest against the government’s decision to bar the students from undertaking ‘internship’ in government hospitals.

Nepal Medical Council on May 8, 2007, issuing a notice, said the students studying in foreign countries should complete 4.5 years course to undertake internship in government hospital in Nepal. It has also stipulated that the elective course or medical clerkship, a career enhancement course, would be offered to the students from abroad for six months at maximum.

The students graduating from universities in China are still undertaking internship as ‘pre-internship’ course, which is usually done for 42 weeks. Besides, there are students who are undertaking internship in different government hospitals in Nepal. However, there is no authority that has record of the students and MBBS doctors who are undertaking internship in Nepali hospital.

The parents want the government to explain the bar on their children. The hospitals have no problem with taking in interns.

The parents are demanding their children be allowed to undertake ‘pre-internship’ in government hospitals in Nepal. They have been staging a sit-in on the premises of the Ministry of Health and Population for one week and they say it will continue till their demands are met.

The ministry says it is a component of the five-year MBBS course which the college itself should manage for the students. “The government has not barred them from undertaking internship,” said Dr Bishnu Pandit, acting secretary at MoHP.

Dr Nil Mani Upadhyay, registrar of the Nepal Medical Council, echoed Pandit’s opinion. “We don’t have any provision of pre-internship, we have only internship programme,” he said adding, “It is the fourth year course; they are calling pre-internship, which students should undertake in their respective colleges.”

The MBBS course in Chinese universities comprises four-year medical course and one-year internship, while in Nepal it is four-and- a-half year medical course with a one-year internship. The course in SAARC nations is similar to Nepal.

Dr Manoj Man Shrestha, secretary of Araniko Samaj, an organisation of the graduates from China, said the difference of medical course is that the internship is scored in final examination. “Students are awarded graduation degree on completion of internship, which the government mistook as pre-internship or medical clerkship,” he said.

The students are required to undertake 42 weeks of internship in final year of the MBBS course in China, which can be done in any government hospital the world over. “Nepali students prefer doing it in their own country,” Dr Shrestha said.

Money matters for these parents. According to Karam Singh Bhandari, one of the parents, Nepali hospitals are charging Rs 1,000 per week for ‘pre-internship’, which costs them about $2,000 in China for 42 weeks.

Hospital can decide on its own to allow internship provided the student has a no objection letter of the university. But the NMC says the decision to bar the students from internship was taken by the ministry while the ministry says it was a political decision. Minister for health and population Giriraj Mani Pokharel could not be reached for comment, while Amik Sherchan, former health minister, was out of the city. Sherchan on February 8, 2007, opened the internship for the students, while Giri on May 8, scrapped the provision.