Doctors threaten indefinite strike against National Medical Commission Bill

Healthcare services at government hospitals, including AIIMS, Safdarjung and RML in Delhi, are likely to be severely hit with resident doctors deciding to withdraw all kind of services, including that of emergency department, on Thursday to protest the introduction of the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill in the Rajya Sabha.

Amid widespread protests, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in a late night tweet said he would table the NMC bill for consideration and passage in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

He also assured the country that the bill, if passed, would bring major changes in the medical education sector.

The bill, which seeks to replace the graft-tainted Medical Council of India (MCI), had got the nod of the Lok Sabha on July 29.

"Resident doctors will refrain from working in OPDs, emergency departments and ICUs as a mark of protest on Thursday and the strike will continue for an indefinite period if the bill is tabled and passed in the Rajya Sabha," Dr Sumedh Sandanshiv, president, Federation of Resident Doctors' Association (FORDA), said, alleging that the bill was "anti-poor, anti-student and undemocratic".

The Resident Doctors' Associations (RDA) of the AIIMS, RML and some other hospitals have given separate notices to the administration regarding the proposed strike.

Resident doctors at AIIMS will hold a demonstration on Thursday and march towards Parliament in the afternoon.

Agitations continued at various hospitals as doctors wore black badges to work as a mark of protest against the bill on Wednesday.

Following strike notice, several hospital authorities have issued a contingency plan for the smooth functioning of healthcare services as a part of which emergency services will function with the help of sponsored residents/pool officers and faculty members.

"In addition, faculty members of other medical/surgical departments wherever applicable will also be deployed in the emergency.

Further ICUs will also be managed with the help of sponsored residents/pool officers and faculty members.

"Inpatient (general and private) wards patient care services, labour room and maternity operation theatre (OT) and support services will function normally and will be supervised by the concerned faculty of hospital administration," according to the contingency plan drawn by AIIMS.

While the out patient department (OPD), dialysis, radio-diagnosis and laboratory diagnosis services are scheduled to function on a restricted basis, routine operation theatre services will largely remain suspended on Friday, the authorities said.

Emergency cases of operations will be taken up as per requirement while for routine OT services patients will be taken up for surgery as per feasibility and mutual agreement between the concerned faculty of surgery and anaesthesiology.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), which has also expressed reservations over several sections of the bill and had given a call for a 24-hour withdrawal of non-essential services on Wednesday, said several health facilities across the country responded to it.

The largest body of doctors and medical students in the country with around three lakh members, the IMA had also called for demonstrations and hunger strikes at its local branches and had urged students to boycott classes.

It has warned in a statement that it will intensify the agitation if the government continues to be "indifferent to our concerns".

At a joint meeting of representatives of the FORDA, the URDA and the RDA-AIIMS held on Tuesday, it was resolved to oppose the NMC Bill, 2019 in its current form.

"It is to inform all the concerned that a gross breach of medical ethics and utter disregard for the noble profession in the form of the NMC Bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha and is also scheduled to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha."

"The provisions of the said bill are nothing short of draconian and promote gross incompetence and mockery of the professionals currently working day and night and sacrificing their youth for this broken system."

"If it is tabled in its current form in the Rajya Sabha without any amendments, the medical fraternity across the country will be forced to resort to extreme measures, which may hamper the healthcare services nationwide. We will withdraw from essential and non-essential services from the hospitals for an indefinite period," the AIIMS RDA, the FORDA and the Untied-RDA said in a joint statement.

The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday even as thousands of doctors protested against it across the country.

It provides for the setting up of a National Medical Commission in place of the MCI for the development and regulation of all aspects of medical education, profession and institutions. The fraternity claims that the bill will encourage quackery.

Doctors are demanding certain amendments in the bill. According to them, if not amended, the bill will lead to deterioration of medical education and degradation of healthcare services.

They are objecting to section 45 of the bill, which, they claim, empowers the Union government to override any suggestion of the National Medical Commission.

"The autonomy and pride of the entire medical fraternity has been surrendered to the whims and fancies of politicians and bureaucrats even as the Union health minister is a doctor himself," AIIMS RDA president Amarinder Singh Malhi and president of its students' union Mukul Kumar had said in a joint statement.