June 22, 2019
Counselling for NEET 2019 has begun but there are reports of many
disabled candidates struggling to get their disability re-certification done.
The Medical Council of India has specified 10 centres from across India for
this purpose but many of them either lack the equipment for certain tests or
are poorly staffed.
With just two days left before counselling for NEET 2019 ends, candidates
with hearing disabilities are lined up outside Vardhman Mahavir
Medical College & Safdarjung Hospital (VMMC and SJH) anxiously
waiting to get their disability re-certification done.
This is the only facility in Delhi that the (Medical Council of India
MCI) has specified for students with a hearing disability. The delay
is because the ENT department here does not have the equipment to do a
speech discrimination test.
A speech discrimination test is meant to assess how well a person who is hard
of hearing can understand words. The audiologist has the person listening to
monosyllabic words through the headphones at a decibel level louder than an
individual’s speech reception threshold, so there is no problem faced with
the volume of the speech. The audiologist asks the person to repeat the words
played out.
There are just three centres for disability re-certification
specified by the MCI in north India, the others are located in Rajasthan and
Chandigarh. One students, with a 60% hearing disability has been waiting for
three days outside VMMC-Safdarjung Hospital. His father told a newspaper,
“We applied for the certificate as soon as the NEET results came out but
are still waiting. As a result, my son has missed the counselling”.
“The speech discrimination test was added just this year”, said
Dr N N Mathur, Principal, VMMC & SJH, explaining the
hold up. “The facility we have is not robust and the results will therefore
not be authentic and may be challenged”. When asked about the plight of the
students, Dr Mathur admitted, ‘Until now, we have ten students still
waiting and yes, they will be affected”. He said attempts were made to get
the students tested at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences
(AIIMS), but that has not worked out.
This is the story not just in Delhi but other cities like Kolkata, Chandigarh
and Mumbai as well, where disabled students have been made to wait for days
because either the equipment or the expert was unavailable. The result is
unnecessary harassment.
“If VMMC Safdarjung Hospital is seeking help from AIIMS for this test, why
has it still been designated as the only centre in Delhi?” asks disability
rights activist and founder of Doctors with Disabilities,
Dr Satendra Singh. He also points to the fact that VMMC
Safdarjung had previously denied admission to a hearing disabled candidate
who went on to fight the move in court successfully. ‘When there is a
precedence of a hearing impaired student, why do you want to harass
again?”, he says.
VMMC has initiated the process of procuring the required equipment but it
will be too late for these students to get into good medical colleges as the
NEET counselling date ends on 24 June. “Given that VMMC is the only centre
in Delhi, an empathic attitude is expected These people only have hearing
impairments but our insensitive attitude makes them ‘disabled’”, says
Dr Singh.
Dr Achal Gulati, the expert who framed the MCI guidelines
for students with a hearing disability, told NewzHook that
the speech recognition test has been introduced for the first time this year
as previously there was no reservation for students with hearing disability.
“Earlier anyone with over 40% hearing impairment was not eligible to be a
doctor. Now the rule is that with the use of a hearing device, the deficit
should come down to less than 40%. But in case of a hearing loss of 70%, even
if we bring it down with an aid, there is a speech recognition issue.
That’s why this test was added”.
Dr Gulati said that many centres have old audio meters which is creating a
problem. But if this was a known fact, then why were steps not taken to
ensure that VMMC Safdarjung had the updated equipment in place well in time
for students? After all, the cost of the equipment, which ranges between Rs
20,000-30,000, is within affordable range.
The attitude indicates total indifference, says Dr Singh. “The equipment
should have been put in place at VMMC or another centre identified at a
private facility, so these students are not subject to needless delay and
harassment. “
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/22610
