NMC Bill legalises quackery, claims IMA-Telangana secretary

Hyderabad: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has called for a complete withdrawal of medical and non-essential services for 24 hours on July 31 in protest against the National Medical Commission Bill, 2019.

Senior IMA doctors say that instead of streamlining the medical education system, the Central government has created further problems and good, smart students would not want to learn medicine with these types of provisions.

Doctors want the NMC Bill to be scrapped because good quality medical care and education will suffer and will be detrimental to the health of the people.

The IMA is protesting against Section 32 of the NMC Bill which they say proposes to give licences to 3.5 lakh unqualified non-medical professionals to practice modern medicine.

The term ‘community health worker’ has been vaguely defined in the NMC Bill, which allows anyone with a basic knowledge of medicine to register with the National Medical Council and practice.

Dr Sanjiv Singh Yadav, IMA-Telangana secretary, said, “This would mean that pharmacists, nurses, physiotherapists, optome-trists and anyone who has medical knowledge but without clinical experience, can register as community health workers which is unacceptable. The safety of the patient is going to be compromised. The NMC Bill legalises quackery, which can never be accepted by qualified professionals.”