Ludhiana, September 16
The Punjab Civil Medical Services (PCMS) Association has criticised the move of the Union Health Ministry to wrest the autonomous powers of the Medical Council of India (MCI) by replacing medical professionals with bureaucrats to supervise all matters concerning medical education such as running of colleges, framing syllabi and quality control.
In a press note issued here Dr Hardeep Singh, state president, and Dr Surinder Singla, general secretary of the PCMS Association, resented the move of inducting ‘Babu’s rule’ on a highly skillful and technical regulatory body, which has to control quality of medical education in India. Dr Singh said , “it is a serious matter for the quality of health services. What we can provide to the common man, bureaucrats can not do as they are not the technical experts”.
The doctors said although the Bhore Committee report, which continued to be a major national document as guidelines for national health planning in India, had recommended against the ‘Babu rule’ in the health matters and was even against the induction of bureaucrats as the secretaries of health. These recommendations were always ignored, as all the ruling parties had a strong instinct of monopolising the powers by sacrificing the larger interests of common man.
This was a major blow to the medical education planning and health profession as under the MCI Act 1956, the government can not nominate members to the MCI. They are to be elected by the universities, state medical associations and autonomous medical institutions.
Dr Balwinder Kumar, registrar, and Dr Ajay Bagga, press secretary of the association, threatened to join nationwide agitation against this move collaborating with other bodies of medical fraternity and also demanded to dismantle unconstitutional ‘Punjab Medical Council’ framed by the previous Punjab Government.
