The Maharashtra Medical Council Act, which governs only doctors, should have hospitals, nursing homes and diagnostic facilities under its territory, proposes a draft amendment to the law which was outlined in 1965 to regulate the medical profession and act as an ethical overseer.

A panel recently finalized the draft after working for six months as it was felt that health institutions should be brought under the law’s jurisdiction in the light of increasing complaints against hospitals.

Dr Shivkumar Utture, president of the Maharashtra Medical Council, a quasi-judicial body constituted under the Act, said that the Act is half a century old and needs modifications to keep up with the changing times. Very often, when patients complain against hospitals, their hands are tied as they have no control over healthcare institutions. Therefore, people has to approach the police, BMC or courts.

Nursing homes and hospitals presently come under the Bombay Nursing Home Act, which, according to insiders, doesn’t go beyond granting licenses. The proposed amendment will give consumers a chance to approach the council that has medical experts, instead of going to the police or courts, who eventually need to seek a medical opinion but through a long-drawn procedure.

One more significant proposal is the total transformation of the Continued Medical Education (CME) programme to take into consideration a doctor’s hours spent in volunteering for rural work, contribution to reputed journals, authoring a book around medicine, among others. CMEs, which doctors should attend to gather points for renewal of their registration every five years, are at present, genrally about attending conferences, over the years, has been criticized for the heavy involvement of pharmaceutical companies. The programme will be also be renamed Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

Utture said it will be the first major amendment to the Act, with multiple changes effected through notifications. The proposal will be soon submitted to the medical education department before the opinion of the law department is pursued.

The four-member panel that worked on the amendments has also sought expansion of the council’s manpower to manage with the workload. Utture said from 18,000 doctors registered in 1965, the council presently has nearly 1.4 lakh members. From 1989, the council has received over 1,700 complaints of medical negligence against doctors, out of which 935 have been disposed. The council receives an average of 170-200 cases annually.

Changes have been recommended on how the ethics committees should receive cases of medical negligence to make the process free of biases. One of the important ones is that no member of the ethics committee which belongs to a region can be part of the panel if the accused doctor is from the same region. The proposal also talks about diluting the powers of the council president, who had the authority to decide whether a medical negligence complaint should be heard by an ethics committee or dismissed completely.

Narrowing of rules around registration of medical interns is now being introduced through notification and is also covered by the amendment proposal. The council has written to deans across the state highlighting that medical interns should seek provisional registration without which they wouldn’t be given a permanent one.

Public health activists has welcomed the changes and expected that they wouldn’t be ornamental. Dr Abhay Shukla of Jan Arogya Abhiyan supported the sweeping reforms and said the council must reflect on the near absence of non-medical experts. He said that the UK’s General Medical Council has a dozen members, of whom 50% are not doctors. The MMC must have former judges, members from civil society and others to have a better balance. At present, it’s a doctors’ club with no incamera hearings or access to the lawyers. Shukla also supportedof enhancing of manpower to reduce pending cases.

Source: ET Healthworld