Unable to ‘rein’ in the Medical Council of India (MCI), the Union Health Ministry will take up the issue of corruption in the autonomous body with the PMO and seek amendments to the MCI Act to make it more accountable and taint-free.
The issue will be part of the power point presentation before Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 30, when the Ministry would share its vision, policies, and gaps in the health sector that are responsible for poor health care system in the country. The meeting will be attended by senior officials from the Ministry and the PMO led by Modi.
The amendments would include provisions such as defined term for the President and the members of the MCI, powers to Health Ministry to remove the President in case of violation of law and inclusion of members from the non-medical fraternity. Blaming the MCI for the health crisis due to acute shortage of human resources particularly doctors, Ministry officials said that they are seeking amendments in the MCI Act so that the regulator body is better regulated and monitored.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, soon after taking charge of the Ministry, had slammed the MCI for breeding corruption. But it’s the medical education regulator’s decision to slash 6,387 existing MBBS seats, many of them in government medical colleges, that has been the immediate trigger for the Ministry to initiate the move to rein in the Council.
“This is in addition to the denial of permission to 50 new medical colleges that would have accounted for another 5,000-7,500 medical seats had they been approved,” said the officials.A senior official from the Ministry said that despite shortage of doctors in the medical sector which is adversely affecting the health care system, the MCI had cut down the seats on minor reasons which could have been easily ignored.
He said that presently there are huge gaps in the infrastructure and human resources. According to a report, India has 7,50,000 doctors and 1.1 million nurses, yet practitioner density is about one-fourth that of America and less than half that of China and there is a shortage of hospital beds and medical facilities. On an estimate, there is 40 per cent and 50 percent shortage of doctors and nurses respectively in the country, the official added.
Presently, instead of focusing on medical ethics for improving doctor-patient relationship and ensuring curriculum standard, the MCI has restricted its job to just granting permission to the new colleges or increasing seats in the colleges, a main source of corruption, the official added. The other issues that the Ministry has drawn up for discussion include challenges and opportunities in ensuring affordable drugs and diagnostic facilities at the primary health level among others.