MBBS students

Dr R N Cooper Hospital

ENT ward and nurses’ quarters

hostel accommodation

Medical Council of India

MBBS courses

medical colleges

Students often miss their lectures because of the queue to use washrooms

The hospital has cleared its ENT ward of patients and dumped the first-year students there

Cooper students boycott classes angered by cattle-class lodging.Two-hundred first-yearathave not attended classes for the past three days after being dumped like animals in the hospital’sbecause of lack ofAll that the institute has provided is one mattress for a pair of students and a pillow each. The students share one or two washrooms, leading to long queues in the morning when all of them have classes.After they came to know about the living conditions their sons and daughters have been condemned to, the students’ parents have decided to gather at the hospital on Monday to lodge a protest with its management.As per thenorms, every college offeringmust provide hostel facilities with maximum two students to a room with bunk beds, a table and chair, and two toilets on each floor shared by a maximum 20 students.Only some of the brightest students break into governmentin Maharashtra and it is understandable that they have been shocked enough by the welcome at Cooper to refuse to attend classes.The crisis has been triggered by the government’s decision to expand the number of reserved category seats in government colleges. To minimise the impact of this on open category, the government has instructed colleges to take in more students than they used to earlier. However, the institutes have struggled to expand hostel facilities to accommodate the increased inflow of students.MBBS course lasts four-and-half years with one year of internship and currently around 800 students are studying at Cooper. The finalyear exams will be held in January 2020 and that is when a few rooms in the hostel will be vacated. But the situation is unlikely to improve in January as there are students in second year waitlisted for hostel accommodation. Also, a new batch of students will arrive in August 2020.“The hospital website talks about hostel facilities available for students. However, when we arrived we were asked to arrange our own stay. When we told the warden that we can’t afford to pay for a rented accommodation in this city, this is the arrangement that has been made for,” said a student from Aurangabad who did not wish to be identified.A senior doctor on the condition of anonymity said the situation is more or less the same across all top medical colleges in the city.A student from Vidarbha said he was told that the ENT ward was a makeshift arrangement and that everybody will be provided proper accommodation in two months’ time. “It’s been more than two months now and there no sign of us getting out of this ENT ward,” he said.Students said they often miss their lectures because of the queue to use the washrooms. “As a mark of protest we have now decided to boycott classes,” said a student.Dean Dr Pinakin Gujjar said the situation is the same in all BMC-run medical colleges. “Every hostel is overcrowded. In fact, other medical colleges have asked their students to arrange their own stay. We took the financial background of our students into account and have special arrangements,” he said.Dr Gujjar said he has raised the issue with the top bosses in the BMC. “We have identified a BMC property in Versova and in a month’s time we will shift some of the students there. In the meantime, I will see if additional washrooms can be made available to the students,” he said.