NEW DELHI: The Centre is sitting over its proposal to amend the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act 2019, which allowed patients and their relatives to approach its ethics board against the decisions of the State Medical Councils (SMC) in complaints of medical negligence and misconduct against doctors, for the past two years. Currently, there is no provision for patients to challenge the decisions of SMCs regarding the medical negligence of doctors.
The health ministry made a provision and proposed an amendment to the NMC Act in 2022. But despite that, the government has yet to notify it, says RTI activist Dr K V Babu.
“Both the elected government and NMC are competing with each other to continue the illegality of denying the right to appeal by the patients against the SMC decision. Otherwise how can the Union Health Ministry still sit over the amendment to NMC Act, which has been in the public domain since December 2022 and the files regarding it were approved in May 2023 itself,” asked the Kerala-based ophthalmologist.
Babu, who has filed several RTIs in this regard, said in its reply on October 8 the health ministry informed him that the NMC Act 2019 is “under consideration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare ministry.” When a patient from Tamil Nadu approached the NMC this year, it replied on September 4 that “...as per existing NMC Act 2019, only registered medical practitioners can apply for first appeal in NMC.”