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MORE MBBS SEATS MEANS LESS JOBS FOR DOCTORS AT LESS PAY!
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MORE MBBS SEATS MEANS LESS JOBS FOR DOCTORS AT LESS PAY!

July 18- July 24, 2026, Stray Thoughts July 17, 2026 , by

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when the decision of the National Medical Council to increase the number of MBBS seats in the Goa Medical College and Hospital from 200 to 250. For a Saturday following the week when the food and drug administration issuing show cause notices to Swiggy, Zomato, Instamart and other instant food delivery platforms for substandard food. For a Saturday following the week when the total lack of any infrastructure for the home delivery of medical and other services for seniors.
 AND a few stray thoughts on when the decision of the National Medical Council to increase the number of MBBS seats in the Goa Medical College and Hospital from 200 to 250. This is subject to the GMC putting the necessarily infrastructure of teaching staff and equipment in place. Which means that Health Minister Vishwajit Rane will get more opportunities to induct unemployed people from his constituency to complete the takeover of the GMC.
Vishwajit Rane has just prepared the ground by promising doorstep delivery of health services to senior citizen patients. The GMC cannot provide prompt and considerate service to seniors citizens at its own premises, forget about doorstep treatment. The larger question is who will employ the doctors turned out by the GMC?
Over the last five decades along the GMC has been producing an average of a hundred MBBS doctors. This adds up to over 50,000 doctors. In addition the nursing colleges have added one lakh nurses. A resident population of 15 lakh Goans cannot support even 5,000 full time doctors and 10,000 nurses. The ground reality is that nobody wants fresh MBBS graduate doctors. The private hospitals ranging from Manipal hospital to the smaller hospitals like Campal Clinic and Trinity pay on an average of Rs20,000 for fresh MBBS doctors to work as resident doctors. Since MBBS doctors think this is too little most private hospitals including Manipal and Healthway employ homeopaths and Ayurveda vaids as resident doctors. The condition of paramedical services like physiotherapy and radiology technicians is even worse. Private hospitals pay an average of Rs10,000 and a maximum of Rs15,000 to physiotherapists and radiology technicians.
Goa just does not have the market for the increasing number of doctors and nurses and medical technicians it is producing. Not surprisingly, the chief minister at a recent nursing day function told nurses to take advantage of very remunerative job opportunities abroad. Goa is perhaps repeating the mistake it made by continuously expanding seats in engineering colleges and encouraging new engineering colleges. Over 50% of the seats in the engineering colleges are going a-begging. Additional 50 seats in GMC which will take the total number of seats to 250 will only increase the joblessness of MBBS graduates. The demand is only for superspeciality consultants for which there are very limited facilities in Goa.

DELIVERY FOOD SUBSTANDARD
AND a few stray thoughts on the food and drug administration issuing show cause notices to Swiggy, Zomato, Instamart and other instant food delivery platforms for substandard food. Consumers have complained that the eggs they receive on Blinkit were rotten. That the biscuits and other food items were expired. That in many cases even the instant groceries like edible oil and packaged flours were from not reputed companies but from unknown brands trying to market their substandard products. Consumers are lured by the very high profiled online advertising pressure. Every minute of the day there are messages from Swiggy and Instamart and Blinkit offering this, that and the other.
 Even I was tempted but stopped ordering the very reputed Karachi biscuits and cookies because they all came broken in their elaborate packs. Similarly, even beverages like coffee and tea offered by big brands like Amul are being offered beyond their expiry dates. Most of the food items offered by these e-commerce platforms are not from reputed restaurants but from sky or cloud kitchens which have mushroomed. These are by definition just hole in the wall kitchens turning out quick snacks in unhygienic conditions. It is significant that legacy brands like Café Central or reputed restaurants like Peep Kitchen do not contract Swiggy or Zomato to delivery their food items. Unfortunately, it is fait accomplice that when you order something as a process of getting a replacement are far too tedious. More over you end up paying 25% more and even 50 % more during peak periods as they attract surge pricing.

108 AMBULANCE SERVICE
AND a few stray thoughts on the total lack of any infrastructure for the home delivery of medical and other services for seniors. Forget about the health minister’s promise of doorstep delivery; these promises have been delivered earlier with no action on the ground. The GMC claims that the response time of the health minister claims that the 108 ambulance service response time has come down to 8 minutes.
The bitter ground reality is that the ambulances will not take patients unless they have an attendant with them. We know the case of a neighbor who lives alone. The ambulance came promptly enough but refused to take the critical woman patient because she was living alone and had no attendants by way of relatives or anyone else since they were all abroad. Even if the ambulance had taken her to the GMC they would not have admitted her because patients are not admitted unless they have a family member with them.
During the four to five months I spent at the Geriartrics ward at the GMC I found the nursing staff or even the multitasking assistants (formerly called servants) would not change a patient’s diaper or change the position of the bed or render even small services to the patient. To the contrary the GMC encourages untrained migrant staff to demand extortionate amounts of an average of Rs1,200 per shift which would work out to Rs60,000 plus if you want a 24 hours attendant which is more that what the resident doctors and the physiotherapists get.
The GMC insistence on an attendant is strange because hospitals in the rest of the country and abroad do not insist on an attendant for a patient. I have spent months at the Jaslok hospital and other Bombay hospitals in Mumbai without an attendant. I have spent five months at the Mallya hospital without an attendant. I was in the National Hospital in London for one week where the nursing staff took care of all my needs.

E20 BLUES
 AND a few stray thoughts on the promotion of E20 petrol by the Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. It is of course a matter of coincidence that Nitin Gadkari’s son is the largest producer of ethanol in the country. Ethanol is a biofuel made primarily from sugarcane. Admittedly, it is very widely used internationally including the USA and the UK. Excepting that in the UK and the US only 5% ethanol is added to petroleum, unlike the 20% in India. India does not have the technology to make high grade E20 petrol. The studies have shown that E20 damages the engine as Indian cars are not designed for blended petrol. The Automobile Association of India has also complained that blended petrol reduced mileage. All the infrastructure including blended petrol pumps are all built around E20 and other options like E5 are not available.

PRIVATIZING FOOTBALL GROUNDS
AND a last stray thought for yet another Saturday. At a time when internationally there is a lot of investment in sports Goa is trying to privatize football grounds. Shockingly this comes at a time when the World Cup Football is being watched by lakhs of Goans on the small screen. Manohar Parrikar vandalized the Dayanand Bandodkar football stadium built by the first chief minister of Goa, Dayanand Bandodkar.The structure was destroyed to create parking facilities for the International Film Festival of India.
On the demand of football players like Brahmanand Sankhwalkar, Parrikar promised to develop the Campal football ground into a stadium. It took ten years for the stadium to came up. The Sports Authorities of Goa has now proposed handing over the new football stadium to a private party. The main structure on the football ground will be a high-end restaurant and a shopping mall. After protests from football players the ground has been handed over to the Corporation of the City of Panjim which could be a solution worse than the privatization considering the greed of the Monserrate family who control the CPP.

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