The National Medical Commission (NMC), which compelled foreign medical graduates from Ukraine to complete a two-year internship, provoked protests from them on Monday in Bhopal. The students brought up the fact that medical students in India only have to complete a one-year internship. This problem emerged because some Indian medical students who were enrolled at foreign medical institutes in China and Ukraine were placed in unsafe circumstances as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The Union Health Minister intervened to save these students, and he was looking into ways to allow them to finish their medical schooling in India.

Various organizations demanded that medical students from the Ukraine who had returned as refugees be given temporary housing at Indian institutions. Given the ongoing turmoil between Ukraine and Russia, a public interest litigation (PIL) was also launched in the Supreme Court asking that the Central Government incorporate these students into the Indian medical system. The medical students from Ukraine who had returned had also protested in a number of places.

The Supreme Court took notice of the circumstance and ordered the NMC to develop a policy within two months granting temporary registration to MBBS graduates who completed their medical education abroad but were unable to complete the practical training requirement in their parent institutes outside of India. The NMC decided to alter its policy for medical graduates who received their MBBS degree from a foreign medical school without participating in physical clinical training last year. 

The Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) was open to Indian students in their last year of MBBS, but the NMC also required foreign medical graduates who passed the exam to complete a two-year CRMI programme. The length of the internship will be doubled in order to make up for the lack of training in clinical and practical skills. As a result, FMGs can only register to practice in India once they have successfully completed the two-year CRMI programme.

The Free Press Journal said that Ukrainian medical students who have returned to Bhopal are dissatisfied with the difference in internship length between them and Indian medical students. On Monday, the students demonstrated in front of the NMC office in Bhopal, and the protest’s organizer, Dr. Udit Soni, criticized the NMC for treating them unfairly. “NMC is completely discriminating. We are also Indians, but unlike the others, we must finish a two-year internship, he said to FPJ. A petition opposing the requirement of an internship for foreign medical graduates is also pending before the bench of the Apex Court.