The Union Cabinet has effectively
ended the era of Medical Council of India.
The citadel of modern
medicine which initiated every young man and woman to the noble profession to
alleviate the pain and suffering will now cease to exist.
The
glorious era of MCI, which produced doctors of international caliber to serve
the humankind as global doctors will come to an end. It will be replaced by
a near total Government department called National Medical Commission.
IMA
has been opposing NMC in its present form.
Devoid
of federal character, this non-representative half non-medical body will be a
poor substitute for the MCI.
NMC
will not represent the medical profession of India.
·
Anywhere in the world,
medical profession is bestowed with reasonable autonomy. Patient care
and Patient safety are the main benefits of such autonomy.
·
Regulators need to
have autonomy and be independent of the administrators. The
National Medical Commission will be a regulator appointed by the administrators
under their direct control.
·
It abolishes Medical
Council of India and along with it possibly the section 15 of IMC Act,
which says that the basic qualification to practice modern medicine is MBBS.
·
It takes away the
voting right of every doctor in India to elect their medical council. Medical Council
of India is a representative body of the medical profession in India. Any
registered medical practitioner in the country can contest the election and
every qualified doctor can vote. Abolishing a democratic institution
and replacing it by a body in which majority are nominated by the Government is
certainly a retrograde step.
·
It allows the private
medical colleges to charge at free will nullifying whatever solace NEET
brought. The Government can fix the fee for only 40 percent of the seats in
private medical colleges.
·
Instituting a Medical
Licentiate exam after qualifying in final MBBS exam is an injustice. It is
highly insensitive to the plight of medical students who even otherwise must
undergo a long and tortuous academic career chequered with highly competitive
exams.
·
The federal character of MCI is not found in NMC. All the state Governments have representation in MCI. Only 5
states in rotation will have representation in NMC. It will take two decades
for a state to re-enter NMC.
·
All universities
teaching medicine are members of MCI. This has been abolished in NMC.
·
All state medical
councils, which are sovereign bodies constituted by state legislatures have
been made subservient to NMC striking a blow to the federal nature of the
nation.
·
Professional organizations
like IMA are registered under Societies Act. In no way their independence
and freedom of action could be subjected to Government control. In fact, they
remain the only whistle blowers, being the voice of voiceless in the issues of
Health. Such corrective forces are part and parcel of the democratic
forces in the country. NMC has been vested with powers to control all
professional bodies.
·
IMA has a representative
in DNB board but not in NMC.
·
It inducts non-medical
people into the highest body of medical governance changing its perspective and
character forever.
·
It introduces schedule
IV to allow AYUSH graduates to get registration in Modern Medicine.
·
It opens the
floodgates of PG seats in modern medicine to AYUSH graduates in future by
providing registration to them in schedule IV.
·
It directly affects
Patient Care and Patient Safety by allowing graduates of other systems to practice
modern medicine.
·
This is not the first
time that the Government has made such a move. In 2005, the then Union health
minister, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, tried unsuccessfully to bring in a legislation
to dissolve the MCI and set up another council under the control of the Health
Ministry. The parliamentary standing committee rejected it because any
regulatory body should be devoid of Government control or else it would lose
its independent regulatory mechanism. It is pertinent to note that in its
exhaustive report, the standing committee took exception to the attempt by the
Government of India to centralize the powers with it and reduce a Body of
Experts created for a distinct purpose by a Parliamentary enactment into a
Department working under the Government of India.
IMA
appeals to the Prime Minister to recall the Bill and rectify these anomalies.
The Parliament has a
larger role to protect the interest of the medical profession of the country.
The welfare and the independence of the profession are linked to the welfare of
the people.
Dr K K Aggarwal- National President, IMA
Dr Ravi Wankhedkar-
National President-Elect
Dr RN Tandon - Hony Secretary General IMA
Dr R V Asokan - Chairman Action Committee
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