Even as the government postponed the NEET PG exams to an undecided date beyond August 31, it announced several decisions to rope in under training medical students for COVID duty. The second wave has caused a huge stress on every resource in the country and human resource is one of these. Not only has the requirement for medical staff increased multi-fold with the patient surge, but a lot of the health care workers are themselves affected by the infection.
Joint secretary in the Union health ministry, Lav Agarwal, on Monday announced that till the time the post graduate entrance exams are announced for doctors, all qualified doctors will be pressed into COVID duty. Those who are doing their internship will also be put on COVID duty, which will again be considered as part of their internship. All final year MBBS students will be roped in for tele-consultations and for handling of mild COVID cases. Also, all final year post graduate students will continue as residents till the fresh batch of post graduate students are admitted.
Similarly, BSc and GNM qualified nurses will be utilised in full-time COVID nursing duty under the supervision of senior doctors and nurses. Services of all allied health personnel will be used as per their training. All medical students, professionals engaged in COVID duty are to be vaccinated and covered under the insurance scheme.
The government has also ordered that all vacant posts in the health sector have to be filled within the next 45 days, on a contractual basis.
Agarwal also announced that all medical personnel who complete 100 days of COVID duty will be given the Prime Minister's Distinguished COVID National Service Samman and will be given priority in forthcoming regular government recruitments.
