The Indian Medical Association (IMA) should undertake some aggressive programmes in the national level in order to cleanse the medical system in the country and the prominent among them should be to challenge the government rules that allow Ayush doctors to practise allopathic system, commented Dr M C Gupta, Advocate and Medico-legal Consultant in New Delhi.

In an email chat with Pharmabiz, he said the association should not remain as a silent spectator to quackery, rather it should challenge it. In the same way it should defy the running of pathology labs by non-doctors/DMLT etc. The association can take stern and deterrent action against doctors who appoint or allow persons not registered with the medical council to work with or under them as employees.  This includes Ayush graduates and foreign graduates who have failed to pass the eligibility test necessary for registration.

When there arise cases against practicing doctors, the medical association should brave the state medical councils that refuse to allow the accused doctors to be defended through their lawyers. It should have the valor to challenge the SC judgment that a doctor must give up medical practice before joining the bar. He said this 1996 judgement needs to be reviewed because there is no such bar in USA, UK, Canada, Australia etc.

Dr Gupta said the doctors may not always be able to treat patients free of cost. IMA should consider this point and challenge the various laws, guidelines and policies and pronouncements that force doctors illegally to treat patients free of cost. The concerned laws include the Clinical Establishments Act, 2010, also, he said.

Further, the association should file suit against the common practice of registering FIR against doctors and arresting them in violation of the SC judgment. So also, IMA should raise voice against the government policy / practice of forcing doctors to treat HIV infected patients, including deliveries and surgeries, without providing them proper infection barrier equipment etc. and without arranging anti-HIV treatment for them if they get infected and without providing them proper insurance cover through an appropriate scheme for the purpose.

The association can take a legal stand in support of striking doctors if the demands and the strike are genuine. It can even advise various residents’ associations about their rights and duties with special reference to strikes and how to organise successful strikes without the strike being suddenly called off under the threat of ESMA/orders from the HC/SC in some PIL filed against the strike.