As the country entered into the ninth month of the COVID-19 pandemic, the doctors of two top medical colleges which come under the ambit of Delhi government are exasperated by months long suspension of medical education in these institutions.

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The resident doctors of the Maulana Azad Medical College and the University College of Medical Sciences told IANS that they have requested the hospital authorities to turn two associated hospitals -- Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital and Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital -- into non-COVID facilities and resume clinical practices of over 3,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students studying there.

The LNJP and GTB are currently dedicated COVID hospitals. Since non-COVID treatments have been stopped in these two hospitals, the academic resident doctors said that the learning of the medical students has been affected severely. Besides, their exclusivity for COVID patients is denying the non-COVID patients their right to treatment, they added.

"Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) and LNJP Hospital are pioneer teaching hospitals and share the responsibility of training more than thousands of undergraduate and postgraduate students every year. Restricting LNJP to only COVID duty is seriously hindering the training and education of these students. This in future will also lead to long-lasting damage to the society and public health," said the President, Resident Doctors' Association (RDA), at MAMC. He informed that the LNJP used to consult 9,000 patients in OPD alone before becoming a dedicated COVID facility.

The LNJP Hospital currently has 2,000 beds for COVID-19 patients. So far, the facility claims to have discharged almost 8,000 recovered patients, the highest numbers across any government hospital in the country. "All the clinical activities other than COVID treatment have stopped now. Our resident doctors are losing valuable time for acquiring and refining their clinical skills. This will hamper the knowledge of the doctors who will go on to become senior physicians and surgeons," said the President of the RDA at GTB Hospital. However, the COVID-19 situation in the national capital is still appalling. Would their demand raise the case burden on other hospitals?

To this, the doctors said that the authorities could split the campus into COVID and non-COVID care centres. "We are just asking the authorities to open half the services for non-COVID patients. It will not just benefit the doctors, but also the non-COVID patients, who are not getting better treatment," he said. "The Delhi government has 37 hospitals but only two medical colleges. The government can convert other hospitals into dedicated COVID facilities as well. Turning colleges into dedicated COVID care centres would not just hamper the academics of the upcoming doctors, but also the patients with serious ailmets," he said. The resident doctors of both the colleges have written to the respective authorities detailing their demands.