While many corporate hospitals and private diagnostic laboratories across the country have medical Master of Science postgraduates interpreting and signing laboratory test reports, the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Rules make it mandatory for all diagnostic laboratories to have doctors registered with the Medical Council of India or the State Medical Council to do this instead.
“Implementation of these rules in two States recently — Rajasthan and Jharkhand — is making postgraduates jittery across the country. There’s widespread resentment among medical M.Sc. postgraduates, whose grouse is that hundreds of them will either lose jobs or be demoted to the role of laboratory technicians if the new rules are implemented by all State governments,’’ noted a release issued by the National M.Sc. Medical Teachers’ Association (NMMTA).
The Union government enacted the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, to register and regulate all clinical establishments. Subsequently, the National Council for Clinical Establishments was set up and the Clinical Establishments (Central Government) Rules were notified in 2012.
While 10 States and six Union Territories, except Delhi, have adopted the rules, they’re implemented only in Rajasthan and Jharkhand. Since health is a State subject, the decision to adopt and implement the Act rests with the State governments. Although the NMMTA has opposed the rules and written to all the authorities concerned, including Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda, to reconsider the rules, but in vain.
‘Unjust exclusion’
Association president Sridhar Rao said: “We’ve protested against this unjust exclusion and demand that the National Council for Clinical Establishment modifies its guidelines to accommodate medical M.Sc. degree [irrespective of a Ph.D] as qualification to interpret and sign diagnostic test reports in microbiology and biochemistry. Since medical M.Sc. is included in the first schedule of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, we urge the Health Ministry to register medical M.Sc. degree holders in the central or State medical councils. Laboratory testing services are not the practice of medicine, therefore the Health Ministry must not restrict the role of interpretation and signing laboratory reports to only doctors.”
“The students also learn about the physiological functions of body, the disease process and the various parameters in health and diseases, which enable them interpret diagnostic tests,” Dr. Rao said, urging the government to set right the anomaly.
‘Quality control’
Arjun Maitra of the Association added: “Medical M.Sc. is a postgraduate degree offered in medical colleges recognised by the MCI and awarded under the faculty of medicine by the university. The students are also trained in all aspects of clinical diagnostics, including specimen collection, processing, quality control, and interpretation of results.’’
