The Union health secretary has written to all states advising that medical colleges resume their classes “on or before 1st December, 2020”, senior officials of the Bengal government have said.

“The letter has been sent to the chief secretary. We are awaiting a directive from Nabanna,” said a health department official. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee holds the health portfolio.

If Nabanna concurs, the health department will issue an order asking all medical colleges in the state to resume classes.

The letter from Delhi mentions that the National Medical Commission (NMC), the regulatory body for medical education, has recommended reopening of medical colleges on or before December 1.

MBBS students across the state have been attending online classes since the colleges were closed in March because of the Covid pandemic. Students said they had missed out on learning by watching senior doctors examine patients.

“We received the letter (from the Union health secretary) on Wednesday. We are examining the recommendations and speaking to our medical college faculties and the administration,” Bengal’s health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam told Metro.

Another health department official said the final decision would rest with Nabanna. “If Nabanna concurs with the letter sent by the Union health secretary, we will issue a similar order and ask medical colleges of our states to reopen. The letter will mention the dates from when the colleges can reopen,” the official said.

Nigam said the medical colleges were closed under the National Disaster Management Act when the Covid-19 pandemic hit India. The state government had issued orders directing suspension of on-campus colleges, he said.

“The state government will take the final call on when medical colleges in our state will reopen,” said Rajendra Pandey, the vice-chancellor of the West Bengal University of Health Sciences, to which all medical colleges in the state are affiliated.

The Centre had earlier issued guidelines allowing students of Classes IX to XII to go to school to consult teachers from September 21 with written consent from parents. But the state government has not yet allowed students to visit schools.

The Union education ministry had on September 22 decided that first-year undergraduate and postgraduate classes in colleges could start on November 1. But the state government has not yet declared when colleges and universities in the state will resume on-campus classes.

“The question is not only about medical colleges but all colleges, universities and schools. The question is whether to allow assembly of students and teachers,” said a senior government official.

Bengal recorded 3,528 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday and Calcutta accounted for 880 of them. Fifty-one people died of the disease in the state on Wednesday, 15 of them in Calcutta.

Referring to the NMC’s recommendations, the letter from the Union health secretary mentioned that “sufficient number of non-Covid beds may be made available in the medical college hospitals to facilitate undergraduate medical training”. An MBBS student said this was required to ensure that future doctors got to learn about treatment of all diseases.

The Calcutta Medical College and Hospital and the College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital in Kamarhati are the two teaching hospitals in and around the city that have been designated as Covid hospitals.

“The medical colleges that have been turned into Covid treatment centres are admitting non-Covid patients, too. So students will get the opportunity to examine non-Covid patients,” said Debashis Bhattacharya, Bengal’s director of medical education.

Sutirtha Bhattacharyya, a final-year MBBS student at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, said they had been attending online classes since the onset of the pandemic in India. “The main problem is we are not being able to see our professors or seniors examine a patient and learn from them,” Bhattacharyya said.

The letter from Delhi mentions that all guidelines to prevent Covid-19 have to be followed while reopening the colleges. “All the SOPs/guidelines with respect to social distancing and prevention of spread of epidemic” have to be followed “scrupulously” by all the colleges, the letter says.