Chandigarh, May 22
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has come to the rescue of nearly forty thousand medical practitioners, who were facing the threat of losing their right to practice, in Punjab. The Punjab Medical Council (PMC) had asked them to re-register or lose their licence.
In a recent meeting held between the MCI and PMC, the apex body for registering doctors in the country made it clear that the notification issued in newspapers on September 7, 2008, and subsequent notices to the doctors were illegal and unwarranted. The notice had given a deadline of February 29, 2009, to doctors to comply with the order. It also asked them to ensure subsequent renewal or registration after every five years.
It has now been decided that the PMC will withdraw the notices issued to the doctors in Punjab. But at the same time, the PMC has also called another meeting to find a way out to ensure that every medical practitioner in the state puts between 30 to 50 hours of Continuing Medical Education (CME) over a five-year period. The MCI has issued general directions saying that doctors must update their skills for the benefit of the patients by way of earning credit hours through CMEs.
Confirming the development, Dr Baldev Singh Aulakh, Professor of Urology and Transplant Surgery at DMC, Ludhiana and India’s only representative at the World Transplant Games Federation, said he as member of the MCI executive had told the PMC that the latter could not do what it was doing i.e. to ask doctors to re-register or lose their right to practice.
After Dr GS Grewal, a senior Ludhiana-based physician, raised a stink over the issue and questioned the right of the PMC to “hold doctors to ransom”, Dr P Kumar, additional secretary of MCI ,clarified the matter in his letter that says: “The registration and equivalence committee decided that once a person who is having recognised medical qualifications is registered with any state medical council, and his name is enrolled on Indian Medical Register, there is no need for re-registration with other state medical council / MCI.”
Though the move of the PMC appeared to be well-intentioned, it did not go well with most doctors who thought that it was only a money-making scheme, besides violating the Medical Council of India (MCI) Act 1956 and at the same time usurp powers that are not enshrined in it under any statute. Doctors say PMC tried to circumvent the MCI Act, even though it could be amended only by the Parliament being a Central Act. Not willing to take a chance, some 2500 doctors have re-registered.
