Demanding restoration of Medical Council of India (MCI), the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has called a nationwide protest against the proposed National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill on Friday, the association said on Thursday. The IMA has also opposed the Indian Medical Council (Amendments) Bill 2018 and Consumer Protection Bill 2018 pending in the Parliament. The IMC (Amendments) Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha recently.

According to the National President of IMA, Dr Santanu Sen, the new bill is throwing three arrows at a time. First, by reserving 50 per cent of the seats at medical college for management, the opportunity to the poor is being denied. Second, the bill seems to increase the compensation amounts payable to the patients to impossible levels and third, the bill may lead to increased healthcare expenses incurred by common people.

“In the proposed bill, they have increased the level of compensation to 10 times. They have created a court like structure without having a judge. There is no provision of expert opinion,”

IMA has been demanding the capping of the compensation since long and we are still demanding it, he said further.

“If the compensation is increased, the number of frivolous complaints with also increases.

So, IMA demands if the amounts of compensation are increased, there should be a provision of huge penalties that will restrict common people from lodging forge complaints,” Dr Sen said further.

 The IMA official further said that the reservation of medical seats up to 50 per cent for managements is denial of equitable opportunities to poor, hence the Bill is anti-poor.

“If you think that only the doctor communities will be affected, you are wrong. The common people will also suffer because there will be more defensive medications by the doctors which will increase healthcare expenditure of the common people,” he said.

The Association has also demanded to exempt the medical profession from the Consumer Protection Bill 2018.

As per the IMA, around 3, 50,000 medical professionals who are affiliated to over 1,700 branches across the country will stage the protest by wearing a black badge around their arms. Although, the medical services will not be halted on Friday, the Association might go on an indefinite strike after that, said the association.