National medical Bill sent to parliamentary panel
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday sent the Medical Commission Bill to a standing committee and asked it to submit a report before the Budget session. The Bill seeks to overhaul medical education and replace the Medical Council of India. It had triggered widespread protests from doctors, whose apex body had called for a strike on Tuesday.
Private doctors called off a strike against the proposed National Medical Commission (NMC), after the government decided to refer the Bill in this regard to a parliamentary standing committee. Doctors argue the Bill does not allow representation of private doctors, doctors from states and students.
KK Ag garwal,im mediate past president of the Indian Medical Association, says: “Issues of doctors working in the private sector are different from government doctors. Also, the government should not be part of this committee if it wants to make the NMC an autonomous body.”
The NMC Bill envisages a four-tier structure for the regulation of medical education, with a 20-member body at the top. The proposed NMC has five doctors; the others are to be government officials. The protesting doctors say they have been kept away from electing their own representatives on the body. And, that they'd be answerable to bureaucrats than those from their own profession.
Among the other things the doctors are protesting at is that they will have to pass a separate examination before being given a licence to practice.
The NITI Aayog recommended doing away with the Medical Council of India, replacing it with the NMC. This new committee was supposed to have representatives from states to look into medical education and practice. The government decided on the move on the argument that doctors guilty of breaches of law and so forth were flourishing despite complaints were not being addressed. There have been cases where doctors accused of corrupt practices were appearing at international medical fora.