Final-Year MBBS Students May Be Asked to Join COVID Duty: Report

Amid a paucity of healthcare personnel and a horrific surge of COVID-19 cases across India, the government could ask final-year students of medical and nursing courses to to join the COVID force.

(Illustration: Arnica Kala/The Quint)

Amid a paucity of healthcare personnel and a horrific surge of COVID-19 cases across India, the government could ask final-year students of medical and nursing courses to to join the COVID force and incentivise those joining in future recruitments, reported ANI, citing sources.

The decision, as per ANI, is said to have been taken at a virtual meeting, to review oxygen and medicine availability, of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with experts.

Further as per ANI, the shortage of human resources pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, and ways to augment it, were discussed during the meeting.

The decisions taken at the meeting, as per ANI, could also include delaying the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) examination and incentivising MBBS pass-outs preparing for NEET to join COVID duty.

It could also involve including final-year MBBS and nursing students in COVID Duty.

Medical personnel doing COVID duty might be given preference in government recruitment as well as some financial incentive, ANI quoted its sources as saying.

India on Sunday, 2 May, reported 3.92 lakh new COVID-19 cases with 3,689 people having lost the battle to the infection in the past 24 hours, as per the Union Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, as a handful of COVID-19 vaccination centers opened for people in the age group of 18-44 years on 1 May, 84,599 beneficiaries received the first dose.

(With inputs from ANI.)