The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to increase the number of seats in its all the four civic-run medical colleges in Mumbai.
Increasing the number of seats in all the four civic-run medical colleges has been a long-pending demand. The BMC has taken the decision after the state has been facing shortage of doctors in the state-run hospitals.
As per the Medical Council of India (MCI) records, by March 31, 2014, 9.29 lakh doctors were registered in the Indian Medical Register. India there is a poor doctor to patient ratio — 1:1,674. The World Health Organisation (WHO) norms mandates it to be maximum 1:1,000.
The four functional medical colleges run by the BMC are Topiwala Medical National College run along with Nair Hospital in Mumbai Central, Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College run along with KEM Hospital in Parel, Lokmanya Tilak Medical College run along with Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in Sion and Cooper Medical College, Vile Parle.
BMC has a plan to add 40 seats in KEM Hospital which currently has 180 MBBS seats. Nair Hospital has 120 seats and the plan is to add 30 seats in it and in Sion Hospital they may add 50 seats to the existing 100.
Currently, MCI-approved colleges across Maharashtra offer 5,945 MBBS seats in 44 medical colleges.