The outfit called off its strike after the govt sent the NMC Bill, 2017 to a select committee
Bhubaneswar: Healthcare services were partially affected in parts of the state Tuesday as doctors joined a 12-hour strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) in protest against a bill that seeks to replace the Medical Council of India (MCI) with a new body.
A protest rally taken out from Power House Chhak to Raj Bhawan here saw the participation of medical students and doctors in large numbers.
Dhananjay Das, a senior doctor at govt-run Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar, said the bill, if passed, will upset the medical fraternity in the country. “The bill will bring down the standards of medical education in the country. It will be a big blow to the entire medical fraternity…” he said.
The general secretary of the Orissa chapter of the IMA, Janmejaya Mohapatra, said the strike has affected healthcare services in outpatient departments of a few government and private hospitals, but the emergency and critical departments were functioning normally.
The National Medical Commission Bill, which was tabled in Parliament Friday, seeks to replace the MCI with a new body and proposes to allow practitioners of alternative medicines such as homoeopathy and ayurveda to practise allopathy after completing a ‘bridge course’.
Terming the Bill as ‘anti-people and anti-patient’, the IMA, in a statement, has stated that the bill purported to eradicate corruption is ‘designed to open the floodgates of corruption’. Later in the day the IMA called off its strike after the government agreed to its demand and sent the National Medical Commission Bill, 2017 to a select committee. “We have decided to call off the strike hearing the government has sent the proposed bill to Parliamentary standing panel,” said IMA Orissa unit Secretary Janmejaya Mohapatra.
PNN