The Medical Council of India (MCI), the statory body to establish rules and standards in medical education in the country, has withdrawn its permission for a postgraduate course in gynaecology at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) Medical College in Dimna.

The MCI last year granted permission for the four-seat PG course to start at the Dimna-based college from this year. But before students could be admitted, the MCI withdrew its permission last Friday.

Reliable sources said the MCI was unhappy that the medical college did not have enough teachers.

Asked how many teachers were needed for the PG gynaecology course and how many the college had at present, MGM Medical College principal Prashant Barla did not divulge numbers.

“The college is short of around 20 per cent faculty members, overall, across 13 departments,” principal Barla said without going into specifics of the gynaecology department.

Prodded, Barla said they had no teaching faculty in the dental department and only one assistant profession for the department of psychiatry. But he did not say exactly how many posts were lying vacant in the department of gynaecology where the MCI had given permission for the PG course only to withdraw it.

Barla however added that they were not giving up.

“After the MCI withdrew its permission, we wrote to the health secretary in Ranchi for filling up the vacancies in the MGM Medical College’s teaching posts at the earliest,” the principal said.

But he also said that this job of recruiting faculty members was a “long-term” thing.

“For now, we are left with no option than to wait and see when it (hiring of teachers) will take place,” the principal said. “But once the vacancies are filled up, we will once again approach the MCI for an inspection of the medical college, again to start the process of obtaining permission for the PG course in gynaecology.”

He pointed out that the one-seat PG course was running at the non-clinical pharma department.