New Delhi: Taking a strong stand against the Centre’s National Medical Commission Bill, the Indian Medical Association has asked all the medical professionals across the country to keep their OPDs shut for 24 hours, saying the government ignored the concerns raised by the medical fraternity in the bill.
The IMA, a pan India non-statuatory medical body, has decided to withdraw all the non-essential services from 6 am Wednesday to 6 am Thurday. The organiation has also called for demonstration and hunger strike at the local brances.
The decision came a day after the Parliament’s lower house cleared the controversial NMC bill, whose provisions had irked majority of the medical professionals.
The bill also has provisions for making national standards in medical education uniform by proposing that the final year MBBS exams to be treated as an entrance test for the post-graduation and a screning test for students in medicione from foreign countries.
This exams, called the National Exit Test (NEXT), would ensure that the proposed NMC moves away from a system of repeated inspection of infrastructure and to fous on outcomes rather than processes.
On Monday, nearly 5,000 doctors and other medical professionals to oppose the bill had marched from the All India Instutute of Medical Sciences to the Union Health Ministry situated at the Nirman Bhawan.
Later the participants also held a candle light march within the campus.
“The autonomy and pride of the entire medical fraternity has been surrendered to the whimps and a fancy of politicians and bureaucrats even as the Union Health Minister is doctor himself,” Amarinder Singh Malhi, the president of Resident Doctors Associaton of AIIMS, said.
IMA also taken a strong stand against the bill throughout.
“We continue to protest against the NMC bill. The section 32 of the bill instantly provides licencing to 3.5 lakhs unqualified non-medical persons to practice modern medicine and adds more and more such persons every year. Not just that there are many other provisions that will destroy the medical profession as a whole,” Shantanu Sen, National President of IMA, said.
As the agitation intensifies, RDAs of various hospitals and their joint body known as Federation Of Resident Doctors Association also held a meeting at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital to decides on the next course of action.
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