Doctors oppose move to constitute national medical commission

Doctors held a demonstration at the Gandhi statue in front of the Kurnool Collectorate on Wednesday, as part of the Indian Medical Association’s call for ‘satyagraham’ on six demands.

The IMA was opposed to the Central government’s moves to constitute a national medical commission, said IMA district president B. Shankar Sharma and sought continuation of the Medical Council of India. He sought enactment of a legislation to avert attacks on doctors, para-medical staff and hospitals.

The other demands included amendment of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, Clinical Establishment Act and Consumers Protection Act and stoppage of awarding compensation to the kin of the deceased, Dr. Sharma said. The right of allopathic doctors to prescribe scheduled medicines must be safeguarded, he said.

Doctors Malikarjuna and Krishna Reddy also spoke. Medical representatives B. Srikanth, Rangaswamy and others participated expressing solidarity.

In Ongole, members of the IMA staged a ‘satyagraha’ on Wednesday urging the Centre not to replace the Medical Council of India with the National Medical Commission(NMC) and pack NMC with non-medical persons. The protesting doctors led by IMA city unit president Alluri Bhaskar Rao took out a protest march from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) to the Collectorate urging the Centre to maintain the professional autonomy of the noble profession.