Hyderabad: The passage of the National Medical Commission Bill has already got miscreants at work, angry doctors in the state said on Saturday even as they struck work for the second day running to protest the legislation.
Unscrupulous agencies have come forward to award a ‘doctor’ prefix to applicants to allow them to practice medicine, according to an advertisement doing the rounds in Delhi. Doctors said that this was the beginning of the misinformation campaign and there is no one to stop such agencies from misguiding the people. To protest against the Bill, junior doctors abstained from duties and held protest demonstrations outside hospitals.
Four junior doctors are on an indefinite hunger strike with the demand that the government must not give community healthcare certificate to 3.5 lakh non-medical workers as proposed in the Bill.
Members of the Telangana Junior Doctors Association on Saturday marched from Osmania General Hospital to the Indian Medical Association at Koti. In government hospitals, doctors were sitting outside and not attending to the out-patient department and elective services.
Copies of the NMC Bill and effigies were burnt at Kakatiya Medical College and medical students carried out marches in the districts to protest against the Bill.
Dr Mahesh Kumar, president of Healthcare Reforms Association in TS, said, “The agitation will continue as the government has done the greatest harm to doctors and medical education. We will not stop.”
