West Burdwan District Magistrate has already shortlisted three to four possible sites for the proposed 100-seat medical college in Asansol, the district headquarters of the district.
Representational Photo
West Burdwan District Magistrate has already shortlisted three to four possible sites for the proposed 100-seat medical college in Asansol, the district headquarters of the district. A team from Swasthya Bhawan is expected to visit shortly to finalise the site selection.
The Finance minister, Swapan Dasgupta, had announced the establishment of new medical colleges in the state and an increase of more than 600 MBBS seats in his Budget speech. This development forms part of a broader push to expand healthcare infrastructure and medical education in the state. At present, there are no government-owned medical colleges in either West Burdwan or Birbhum. Local chambers of commerce and industry have welcomed the Finance minister’s announcement.
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On 18 June, Chaitali Chakraborty, Managing Director of the West Bengal Medical Services Corporation Limited (WBMSCL), issued a notification to the Chief Medical Officers of Health (CMOH) of West Burdwan, South Dinajpur and Alipurduar, laying down clear guidelines for preparing Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) for the proposed three new medical colleges in the state.
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For the establishment of a new medical college, the requirements prescribed under the Minimum Standards Regulations (MSR) of the National Medical Council (NMC) must be fulfilled.
“Every hospital seeking permission to start a medical college after the publication of this amended regulation shall comprise the medical college, the attached teaching hospital, and hostels for students and interns, with or without residential accommodation for faculty and other staff of the college and hospital. The medical college, hostels and teaching hospital shall either be located on a single campus or on a maximum of two campuses.
The teaching hospital should have an average indoor bed occupancy of at least 80 per cent per annum. If there are two plots or campuses, the college shall be located on a single plot. The distance between the college and hospital campuses shall not exceed 10 kilometres,” the state health department’s notification stated.
Following receipt of the notification, the CMOH of West Burdwan, Dr Sk Md Yunus, immediately forwarded it to the District Magistrate, S Ponnambalam, for the final selection of land.
It has been decided that the Asansol District and Super Speciality Hospital, which has 750 beds, will be upgraded into the Asansol Medical College Hospital. Three to four locations near Kalyanpur have been identified for the construction of the administrative building, hostel and college campus. The proposed sites are all located within 10 kilometres of the Asansol District Hospital.
After the sites are shortlisted, an engineering team from WBMSCL is expected to visit Asansol shortly for inspection. According to sources in the CMOH’s office, the Asansol District and Super Speciality Hospital is the only hospital in the district with more than 420 beds and therefore automatically qualifies under the norms laid down by the WBMSCL.
The Centre and the Medical Council of India (MCI) have already approved a separate 50-seat medical college at the ESI Hospital. However, it falls under the state labour department rather than the health department. In addition, 100 MBBS seats will be added to the Suri Medical College and Hospital, according to the state budget.
The state Budget also announced that the Suri Super Speciality Hospital in Birbhum district will be upgraded into a medical college hospital. Jagannath Chattopadhyay, local MLA and the state’s Higher Education minister, said that establishing a state government medical college in Suri had been one of his election promises.
Both Urban Development minister Agnimitra Paul and the Higher Education minister played key roles in securing the two new medical colleges for Asansol and Suri respectively.
In Birbhum district, Visva-Bharati University, a Central university, has also proposed setting up a medical college on the lines of AIIMS at Santiniketan and sent a formal proposal to the Centre a few weeks ago.
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