RIMS has applied for reconsideration of MS surgery recognition
IMPHAL, November 13: Professor and head of the Department of Surgery, RIMS, Dr G S Moirangthem, clarified on the matter of the news reports in local dailies today regarding an inspection of the Department of Surgery, RIMS, by the Medical Council of India and the MCI’s refusal to recommend recognition of the MS degrees of the RIMS thereof.
In an interaction with the media in his office at the RIMS, Dr. Moirangthem said the MCI’s report that the bed occupancy on the day of inspection/assessment is only about 60 percent was on account of a cease work strike by staffs on the day, otherwise on full working day.
On any normal day, the bed occupancy is never less than 80 to 90 percent.
He further explained that the department has a separate Post-Operative Ward which has been labelled recently as SICU, fitted with sufficient number of monitors, central suction and oxygen pipelines installed.
When the ventilator support is required, the department shifts patients immediately to general Intensive Care Unit, ICU, which was under renovation on the day of assessment but it is fully functional now, he added.
Dr Moirangthem further clarified he was associate professor in surgery from June 6, 2001 to January 31, 2006 and the GI surgery unit was attached to him.
He said the MCI report that he skipped the mandatory tenure as associate professor was on account of a typing error by his office staff which resulted in a column missing from his resume. He has since apologised to the relevant authorities for the lapse.
Regarding the weekly operative workload, he said that the department run two general surgery tables daily and one emergency operation from Monday to Friday. It runs three tables on Saturday except 2nd Saturday.
On an average, operative load on one OT (operation theatre) table per day is four to five patients except on days of general strikes, bandhs and curfews, which are frequent on account of the disturbed law and order situation in the State he added.
In addition to the books and journals available in the department, the department of library is linked online to the Central Library of the institute and all the important surgical journals are subscribed by the Central Library, he said adding “the faculty and students of the department have access to any journal at any time during office hours.”
He said this was demonstrated to the assessor at the time of the inspection.
Dr. Moirangthem also said that director, RIMS, Professor Ch Arun Kumar Singh has since submitted a memorandum to the secretary Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, to reconsider recognition of MS (General Surgery) degree awarded by RIMS, Manipur University, for all deficiencies pertaining to infrastructure and operative workload have been taken care of to accommodate the increase of PG seats from 8 to 16 per annum in the Department of General Surgery, of the RIMS.