The in-patient wards in the hospitals of private siddha medical colleges in Tamil Nadu are in a neglected state as these healthcare centres are not getting adequate number of patients to attain minimum bed occupancy rate.

Students admitted to the BSMS course in these private institutions are the victims of the desperate situation prevailing in each college as they do not get practical training without enough patients. The situation in most of the private colleges is the same, and certain colleges even do not have hospital facilities, said students of siddha.

Graduates coming out of these colleges possess little knowledge of practical training they were supposed to get during their course period, thanks to CCIM who conducts regular inspections in all these colleges. In addition to this grave situation, insufficiency of infrastructure facilities is also affecting the students in colleges in a big way.

In Tamil Nadu there are five private siddha medical colleges conducting the BSMS course and the Government siddha medical colleges at Palayamkottai and in Chennai are having the course. The National Institute of Post Graduate Studies in Siddha, the central government institute under Ayush department located near Chennai, runs the PG course. While the government colleges lack sufficient qualified faculty, the private colleges are confronting zero bed occupancy in their IP wards.

According to information received, each medical college should have hospital facility to treat 100 patients for a group of 50 students. Any of the private medical colleges in Tamil Nadu is not able to comply these norms. The reason cited for lack of patients is that all the colleges are away from the city and they charge fees for treatment and medicine which are freely available in the government medical colleges and PHCs.

The secretary of the Chennai based Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research (CTMR), Dr T Thirunarayanan said last year the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), after its thorough inspection at the NIS Chennai reduced the number of seats for BSMS and PG courses owing to shortage of patients. He said the number of patients visiting the National Institute of Siddha hospital and other two government siddha medical college hospitals are poor and where the dispensaries do not have all the medicines mentioned in the essential drug list.

He further alleged that the two government siddha medical colleges in Tamil Nadu do not have adequate number of qualified teachers and majority of the working faculties are lacking intellectual caliber.