The National Medical Commission Bill, 2019 to repeal Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 was passed in Lok Sabha. The NMC Bill 2019 has sparked a widespread controversy among the medical fraternity regarding some sections of the bill.
The NMC Bill 2019 was introduced by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Health and Family Welfare in Lok Sabha on July 22, 2019. The bill was passed in Lok sabha and now it has been sent to Rajya Sabha for approval.
The passage of the bill has initiated vehement agitation among the doctors in the country and if the bill in its current is moved to Rajya sabha and it is approved, the medical society is concerned about the negative impact it will have on country’s progress in the medical field.
This bill is promoted as a measure to reform whole medical education in the country and cap the corruption in the medical education system. This bill is said to bridge the gap between patient and doctor ratios in the country.
The bill regulates the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test as a uniform barrier for all students to successfully qualify to pursue medical education. There is also a National Exit Test for all final year undergraduate to obtain a license for practice and the same test is a basic qualifying examination for students to pursue postgraduate medical education. The medical practitioners and other people related to country’s health service raise their concern regarding this section of the law that National Exit Test is not an eligible method to gauge the skill of doctors and there is also a PG NEET for the student to allow them to pursue PG medical education that should not be abolished.
The NMC Bill regulates other autonomous bodies under NMC. These are the Under-Graduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), the Post-Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB), Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) and The Ethics and Medical Registration Board. The UGMEB and the PGMEB will be responsible for standards, curriculum, guidelines, and granting recognition to medical qualifications to 50 percent of medical colleges. This has several loopholes as is the controversy. That the other 50 percent will be free game for private medical colleges to do as they want which opens a gate for corruption and the fee structure to rise as is already happening in private medical colleges throughout the country.
The experts in the field raise another concern after reading between the line that the 50 percent NMC is said to set guidelines for will be of no consequence as guidelines are not mandatory. This is an anti-democratic anti-poor as the regulation will be taken unnecessary advantage of.
The bill as a measure to decrease the doctor-patient ratio will grant ‘limited license to certain mid-level practitioners connected with the modern medical profession to practice medicine’.Though The Ethics and Medical Registration Board under NMC will keep separate National Register for community health providers, this step is seen as a set back against the progress in the country’s health standard as it will promote and ‘legalizes quackery’.
The NMC Bill regulates 25 members in the whole NMC council and the four autonomous bodies under it. Here the catch is central government is given the power to choose 20 of the members and the other five will be elected by medical practitioners for two year period. The medical organizations across the country are wary of the amount of corruption this step warrants by centralizing the power too much.
Indian Medical Association (IMA) has already started a protest and warned the protest will intensify as it is IMA’s call for the withdrawal of non-essential service nationwide has been successful. Doctors from All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Safdarjung and RML in Delhi have withdrawn not only non-essential service but the ICU and emergency for today.
Facebook Comments