Parents of Ukraine-returned MBBS students seek help from Centre to accommodate students in Indian colleges

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Parents of MBBS students who returned from Ukraine gathered at the Jantar Mantar in the national capital on Sunday seeking the government's intervention to accommodate their children in medical colleges.

Dr Rajesh Kumar Chandel from Himachal Pradesh, father of Vivek Chandel, a fifth-year MBBS student of a Kharkiv University in Ukraine said, "We are not protesting, we are requesting the government to accommodate our children in colleges. All the parents have come to Delhi to request the government to accommodate their children in Indian medical colleges. We have met our Chief Minister, Union Minister Anurag Thakur and others. Apart from them, we have also met BJP National President JP Nadda at his residence.

He assured us that this problem will be solved shortly." "We have come here to show how many students are affected and are requesting the same. We want to collectively raise a voice as it is about the future of our children." Earlier in March, the External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar in a written statement laid on the table of Rajya Sabha said that the government has been able to safely bring home 22,500 Indian citizens and 147 foreign nationals belonging to 18 countries from Ukraine since February 2022 in the wake of Russia-Ukraine war.

RB Gupta, President of the Parents Association of Ukraine Medical Students said, "My child is a second-year student who is studying in Ivano. We are in favour of the government. We are just requesting the government that the way they have saved the lives of our children under Operation Ganga, they secure our children's future the same way. "Currently, people from 10 states have joined here at Jantar Mantar including Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Odisha," Gupta added. "We request the government to fulfil the dreams of students who had gone to Ukraine to become doctors. We want them to be accommodated in India. Some special norms should be there for these students," he further said.

"Till now we have spoken to Union Health Minister Mansukh Madaviya. Parents Association went to his residence and submitted the memorandum. We also met former Health Minister Harshvardhan and many Lok Sabha MPs," Gupta told. "Around 12,000 students are there who need to be accommodated. 20,800 students have come from Ukraine of whom 4,800 are in Engineering or other courses. 18,000 students are in medical out of which 4,000 students are in their final year and have already been given directions. We want all of them to be accommodated in India. If the government brings out a Bill, then there is a possibility to accommodate these students in India," he added.

Aditya Bhardwaj, a fourth-year student at Kharkiv in Ukraine said, "We are requesting the government as they have already helped us a lot by bringing us back home. We are already obliged to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian government for bringing us back home safely. Our future is in dilemma. Our classes that are running online are not running properly. Teachers are taking classes in war zone conditions. We request the Indian government to accommodate us in Indian colleges so that we can pursue our studies here."

"Only two to three classes are held in a week and that too gets interrupted as it is in the middle of firing and bombing starts due to which teachers have to move to bunkers. Our external affairs minister said in Lok Sabha that the Indian government is in talks with the European countries to accommodate us. The most important part is that our clinical part of the syllabus is about to start. So, if we go to Hungary, Poland, it is necessary for us to know the local dialect. For our clinical education, we won't be getting a chance to interact with patients till we don't know their local language. We learnt Ukrainian for four years, but to go to a new country and learn their language will be an extra burden on us," Bhardwaj said.

Sanya, a third-year student at Ivano in Ukraine said, "Our online classes are running, but MBBS is not a course which can be learnt online. We need to have practical knowledge which we are unable to do. We have no idea when we will go back to Ukraine. So we request the government, either give admission to us here or provide some facilities to us to have practical knowledge."

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