Indian Medical Association not to co-operate with Centre

Hyderabad: The Indian Medical Association has stated that it will not co-operate with the government in the health programmes across the country as the Medical Council Of India committee has been superseded by the government. The IMA is a part of all the government welfare programmes and is on the advisory board and also helps in effective implementation of various schemes.

The superseding of the MCI committee has got the doctors furious because they claim that the government is contemplating an ordinance to bring the National Medical Council (NMC) Bill. Dr Ravi Wankhedkar, national president of IMA said, “The current tenure of MCI ends on November 5, 2018 and it is reliably learnt that the government is contemplating an ordinance to bring NMC. This is a backdoor entry. IMA strongly condemns this move of the government which is nothing but a betrayal of the Parliament.”

The IMA alleges that the move to bring in the NMC is pro-management and anti-poor and it will strongly oppose it. TS IMA’s Dr Mohammed Iqbal explained, “The government is going to bring modern medicine and AYUSH practitioners under one umbrella. This bill will legalise the use of AYUSH doctors in hospitals which is going to be bad for patients. In order to cut their costs, hospitals will employ them and it is going to cause a major havoc for the patient who will have three doctors of different streams examining and treating them. This is going to be the end effect of the move and therefore, we are going to oppose it tooth and nail.”