T.N. govt launches portal for foreign medical graduates to check vacant internships

The Directorate of Medical Education (DME) and Research on Saturday launched a web portal to enable Foreign Medical Graduates (FMG) to check vacant internship positions in government and private medical colleges, apply online directly, and obtain their allotment orders.

Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said the portal was launched to do away with the difficulty of students having to search for vacant positions to take up their Compulsory Rotatory Medical Internship (CRMI) training.

Shortly after launching the portal, the Minister said that foreign medical students were previously required to pay ₹3 lakh to the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University to undergo internship training at medical colleges in the State. They also had to visit a number of offices for applications and take up internship positions wherever there were vacancies. This fee was waived after this (DMK) government assumed office, and they were also granted a monthly stipend of ₹25,000 during their internship period.

Following this, the Tamil Nadu Medical Students Association – Foreign wing thanked the Minister for fulfilling their demand to make the internship application process online. FMGs are required to undergo CRMI to obtain permanent registration in India. For this, they have to visit DME office in Chennai and submit the necessary documents within the specified dates. This caused difficulties for those coming from distant districts. So, they made a request to take this process online. They also welcomed the launch of the portal as the number of available vacancies will be published transparently.

Appointment orders

Earlier, Mr. Subramanian handed over appointment orders to 668 nurses, who had worked during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the last batch of nurses to be given appointment orders.

To ensure that none of the nurses who worked during COVID-19 is left out, they were granted special marks and appointed in 708 urban health and wellness centres, 50 primary health centres (PHC), and urban PHCs, he said.

A total of 2,814 persons were temporarily appointed during the pandemic. Of them, 2,146 had already received appointment orders through the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB) on a contractual basis. There were issues in submitting documents for the remaining candidates, and they had requested contract appointments through MRB. They were called individually and their documents were verified. Appointment orders have now been issued to 668 persons.

The Minister said that the State government has been gradually granting permanent posts to those who had been working on a temporary basis through MRB since 2014. “Between 2014 and 2021 – a period of seven years during the previous AIADMK regime, only 1,871 individuals were granted permanent appointments,” he said, adding that as promised in the DMK election manifesto, 5,825 contract nurses have received permanent job orders within five years of the present government.