An emergency meeting of NMC on Monday unanimously took this decision, acknowledging that rigging had taken place in the entrance exams held on Saturday and Sunday. [break]
“We also recommended that Tribhuvan University (TU) cancel the exams,” Dr Som Nath Aryal, Chairman of NMC, said. The Nepal Medical Council Act-1963 allows it to annul medical exams, if required, through recommendation to the university, TU in this case.
“NMC´s decision to invalidate the exams implies its cancellation,” Dr Karbir Nath Yogi, President of Nepal University Teachers Association (NUTA), Maharajgunj chapter, told myrepublica.com. “Once NMC invalidates any exams, students who pass the invalidated exams cannot get certified for medical practice. TU´s formal decision to cancel already-invalidated exams is therefore insignificant.”
Dr Arun Sayami, Dean of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) who is at the receiving end of the TUTH exams controversy, also attended the NMC emergency meeting as a representative member of medical college deans. But Dr Sayami, according to sources, did not write any note of dissent against the NMC decision. “Dr Sayami endorsed our unanimous decision by choosing to be silent,” an NMC member said.
Dr Sayami did not receive telephone calls when contacted for his comment. He has been accused of leaking question papers to some students, who allegedly bribed him. As the controversy turned nasty, about 400 students out of the total of 1,600 boycotted the exams conducted on Saturday and Sunday with the deployment of security personnel.
NMC´s decision to invalidate the exams came after teachers, doctors and nurses at TUTH joined student protests. On Monday, hundreds of students accompanied by doctors and teachers picketed the Dean´s Office for over two hours. After the picketing the students went to the NMC office at Bansbari to press their demands.
The students´ three-point demand consists of cancellation of the exams, resignation of the dean and all his office staff and a probe into the question paper leak. “We will not withdraw our agitation unless all three demands are fulfilled,” Sudan Thapa, Secretary of Free Students Union (FSU) TUTH chapter, told myrepublica.com on Monday.
Probe ordered
Meanwhile, Education Minister Sarwendra Nath Shukla, whom the agitating doctors, teachers and students met Monday, has ordered Madhav Sharma, Vice Chancellor of TU, to probe the allegation leveled against TUTH Dean Dr Sayami about leaked question papers.
According to VC Sharma, TU has formed a five-member committee to look into the allegation. “I have given the responsibility of heading the probe panel to an erudite professor,” Sharma told myrepublica.com. “The panel has been given the task of submitting its report within one week.”
Patients suffer
Hundreds of patients-- including those securing appointments--were deprived of treatment at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) Monday due to an indefinite strike called by doctors in support of the students demanding cancellation of post-graduate medical entrance examinations conducted Saturday and Sunday.
Hundreds of patients who went to TUTH Monday for treatment had to return without meeting the doctors after seeing the notice on indefinite closure of the hospital. More patients are likely to suffer in the days to come as doctors Monday vowed to continue the strike. “Despite cancellation of the exams and forming of the probe panel, we have not called off our strike as the dean is yet to resign,” Dr Yogi said.
Around 1,500 patients visit the Out Patient Department (OPD) at TUTH every day. Two months back also, TUTH halted all but emergency services in response to a call by Nepal Medical Association (NMA), leaving hundreds of patients high and dry.
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