Doctors claim move to give people from non-medical background overriding powers to govern private practitioners will most likely result in harassment
The Indian Medical Association (Pune) yesterday held a rallyand went on a token strike to protest against government policies regarding private hospitals and practitioners. Though city hospitals supported the strike, they continued with their services as usual.
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According to city doctors, a new law is set to dissolve the current medical councils and instead give overriding powers for governing medical practitioners to people from non-medical backgrounds who might have no idea of medical issues and who are likely to cause harassment of practising doctors.
The members of the body governing nursing homes will be nominated by the Centre and the doctors will have no say in it.
“This bill is going to make doctors follow the minimum standards of space, infrastructure, equipment, number of qualified paramedical staff and nursing staff for different types of clinical establishments,” Dr Bharati Dhorepatil, president, IMA (Pune) said. “This will directly affect the patients as they will be heavily taxed and end up paying huge bills.”u00a0