Doctors seek ‘anti-quackery’ law

MEDICAL ASSOCIATIONS claim that registered medical practitioners (RMPs) and private medical practitioners (PMPs) do not have legitimacy.

Medical fraternity in the state has taken up cudgel against about 30,000 to

40,000 unqualified medical practitioners who violate rules and also came down upon the government for giving them recognition.

While officials say they crack down on violations, untrained practitioners say they are essential to provide medical services in remote areas of the state. The Telangana branch of the Indian Medical Association, in a workshop held on May 1,

2022, resolved to lodge complaints with concerned district authorities against quacks and to request the state government to consider formulating an ‘anti-quackery law.’

Medical associations claim that registered medical practitioners (RMPs) and private medical practitioners (PMPs) do not have legitimacy. A reply to an RTI query filed by the Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) with the health department in 2017 stated that the government had never prescribed any qualification or issued any orders on practicing as RMPs and PMPs.

HRDA president Dr K. Mahesh Kumar said violations by such unqualified practitioners were rampant, and the HRDA itself had lodged three FIRs against such practices in the state. “Many of them are prescribing unnecessary medicines to patients,” Dr Kumar said.

However, president of Telangana RMP, PMP and Community Practitioners Association Venkat Reddy says a few violations by some people do not make all such practitioners bad. He says GOs have been passed, both by the united AP government and the Telangana government which give them recognition.

Reddy added that in remote villages, where the nearest PHC was 20 km to 30 km, it might not always be possible for patients to reach doctors on time. In such places, such practitioners are essential, he said.

An official of the health department said such practitioners were allowed to provide only first aid services, but were often found to offer other services too, or put up a board claiming their service to be that of a hospital.

“We then shut them down unless they remove the board. We have also permanently closed many clinics. Earlier, some of them were giving injections to patients, but we cracked down on them,” the official said.

However, TSMC registrar Dr Hanumantha Rao said such unqualified practitioners had no legitimacy whatsoever. “It is illegal for them to even provide first aid services, and they could be booked under sections of the IPC for the same,” he said.