An online Zoom protest was recently held by the Foreign Medical Graduates’ Association, addressing the inordinate delay on the part of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) to conduct the Examination to Register to Practice Medicine (ERPM), and urging authorities to allow the students to sit for the examination.
They previously held a protest in September 2020, charging that this undue delay had violated the fundamental rights of around 1,000 foreign medical graduates.
Following this previous gathering, Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi in November 2020 appointed a committee of doctors to look into the matter, who have since released a report of their findings; the report stated that there has been no court injunction against holding the ERPM examinations.
The report also suggests under “Opinion 4” that advising to postpone the ERPM “without a documented reason, was a somewhat irresponsible act on the part of a legal officer, SLMC President, and Acting Registrar”, considering the nearly 1,000 candidates and the loss of new doctors to the country.
The report continues to suggest that it would have been better if the legal representation indicated to the bench that this delay is preventing the country from employing much-needed doctors, adding also that the SLMC must understand that all these actions are affecting the people in the country.
The committee points out that there has been a lack of accountability by the SLMC that could have been averted, and that indefinite postponement of an examination affecting nearly 1,000 candidates, quoting an inability to find adequate infrastructure, is unacceptable, stating that “there should be no more excuses for not holding the examination. If there are further delays, it will only show that the SLMC is not accountable to the country, and that the SLMC is inefficient”.
Background
The SLMC is the statutory council responsible for conducting the ERPM, and all foreign medical graduates with medical degrees from universities recognised by the SLMC are eligible to sit for the exam, as long as they submit their degree and other supporting documents to the SLMC and obtain a Degree Approval.
This exam consists of two components. One is a written exam of clinical subjects, community medicine, and forensics. This exam is held in Colombo, usually at a single exam centre. The second is the Viva components of clinical subjects. This exam is held in eight teaching hospitals around the country, which are affiliated with the local medical faculties.
Upon completion of the two parts, an applicant is eligible to apply for provincial registration with the SLMC, and is thereafter able join the intake of medical interns, along with medical graduates from the local faculties and the Kotelawala Defence University.
There are two intakes of interns per year, and so ERPM exams are also held twice a year, as instructed by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Each cycle of ERPM exams should ideally be six months long to accommodate this. However, the Foreign Medical Graduates’ Association stated that the ERPM exams have not been held in this frequency by the SLMC since July 2019.
Speaking with Brunch, the students, who wished to remain totally anonymous due to fear of being penalised at the exams, stated that the reason for their protests has been to voice their frustrations. “We don’t understand why the SLMC and local faculties do not wish to allow us the same opportunities. Are we not students who graduated and are willing to do the exam? We are totally frustrated waiting for the exam for a long time,” they said. “We are willing to buy the necessary protective equipment, subject ourselves to the PCR tests, or even quarantine in this situation to attend this exam, because we want to serve the country.”
They further explained that they do understand that there are challenges due to the pandemic; however, as there is in fact a dire need for doctors in the country, they themselves are “eager to serve in this hour of need”.
“We want to educate the public and the necessary organisations that a group of about 900 doctors are awaiting internship, roughly about 700 out of 900 have done the examination, and due to postponement of three exam stations, about 200 students are unable to complete the exam,” they said. There are two groups of students awaiting the opportunity to gain access to this internship: the group of students who have sat a full round of both part one and part two of the examinations, and are awaiting an opportunity to complete a few repeats, and a group who has not had the opportunity to attempt the exam even once. They also state that where typically there are eight exam stations, five of them were actually able to complete the examinations, with three stations (Karapitiya, Anuradhapura and Jaffna) remaining to complete the examinations and 150 students to sit with them.
Aftermath of online protest
The members of the Foreign Medical Graduates’ Association stated that following their online protest, they were able to hold a meeting with the latest SLMC President who was appointed in 2020, Prof. Vajira H.W. Dissanayake.
The students stated that this was the first positive response they had received since their troubles began in 2019. They shared that in the meeting, Prof. Dissanayake had stated they are in fact willing to hold the examinations; however, they are currently faced with logistics issues, particularly during this period with the lockdown in effect. However, he had also stated that the SLMC is willing to hold the exam once these logistical issues are sorted.
The students shared that while his response was encouraging, what they feel right now is that the authorities are of the mindset where they will not be taking into consideration the two full years of delay that the students will have had to endure, as the next intake for the internship is on 4 June, and this batch of students will clearly be unable to attend that as well. They stated that there have been no discussions regarding alternatives, or compensation for lost time.
