The Social Committee of the Cabinet has made a 20-point decision regarding implementation of a report on medical education prepared by the Kedar Bhakta Mathema-led high-level task force.

A press statement issued by the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers today said the policy decision was made after an intensive discussion with the concerned stakeholders and members of a sub-committee formed to implement the National Policy Report on Medical Education prepared by the eight-member Mathema panel.

The sub-committee is led by National Planning Commission member Yagya Bahadur Karki with secretaries of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Health and Population as members.

As per the decisions made public by the OPMCM, the government will not grant affiliation to any new institution to run bachelor’s level medical, dental and nursing courses in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur until further decision.

Similarly, Letter of Intent (LoI) will be provided to run medical, dental and nursing programmes only to the institutions which are in operation and have hospital with the capacity of 300 and 100 beds respectively. In the case of institutions that have already obtained LoI, the government will give due consideration to their physical infrastructure and other criteria before proceeding with the renewal process.

Hospitals will be permitted to apply for affiliation to run medical and dental programmes once they complete at least three years of their operation. The committee has decided to form a task force to study the feasibility of taking admission of up to 100 students in MBBS and 50 students in dental programmes within 15 days.

The committee has also decided to fix the maximum fee ceiling for MBBS level at Rs 3.5 million in installments in the case of the Kathmandu Valley. The fee is subject to revision every two years. The government will also fix the maximum fee of Rs 1.8 million for students of Bachelor of Dental Surgery in the Valley, while implementing the rest of recommendations made by the Mathema panel accordingly.

source:the himalayan times, 3 sept 2015