Doctors from private hospitals strike today against NMC Bill

Around 35,000 doctors working in about 15,000 private hospitals in the State will strike work for 12 hours from 6 am on Saturday, when the Centre is due to table the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill in the Lok Sabha. The nationwide strike has been called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to protest against the Bill.

Doctors will however attend to emergency cases, said IMA State president-elect Dr C N Raja said on Friday. He said that the Bill proposes to replace the present Indian Medical Council (IMC) with a 25-member National Medical Council (NMC) in which only five members would be doctors. The others would be from other fields.

If the bill becomes law, non-medical professionals would dominate the body and AYUSH doctors would be allowed to practice allopathy after undergoing a six-month training, which is against the ethics of the profession.