Health interest groups in the country have urged Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to immediately review the manner and reasons behind the disbanding of the previous Medical Council of India (MCI) and the new appointments made by the health ministry allegedly with persons with conflict of interest as board members of MCI.

Expressing deep concern over the selection of persons with conflict of interest as board members of MCI, the health groups in an open letter to the Prime Minister said that with this turn of events, the MCI would be in a similar situation as it was when Dr Ketan Desai was the president of MCI. Corrupt practices had sullied the image of the MCI and affected the credibility of the entire Indian medical fraternity. Unless tough measures are taken, the same situation will recur. People with unblemished backgrounds need to be involved in running the MCI, otherwise the important role of oversight of medical ethics in India will remain unfulfilled.

Taking strong exception to the disbanding of the previous Council which had made several contributions to the medical education including the introduction of Common Entrance medical Test (CET) and revised medical curriculum, the health groups said that government disbanded this board succumbing to pressure from private sector which was opposing the roll out of CET. The appointment of new board members of MCI is being linked to the private interest in the medical education market which is one of the primary responsibility of the Council. There is a strong concern among the health interest groups that the current board of members having direct association with private sector, seem to have vested interest of bringing private sector into the medical education sector.

Without hiding its disquiet over the manner in which the previous Council has been disbanded, the health groups said that there is a danger that the government’s actions will be seen as arbitrary and questions in the media about the potential conflicts of interest of the new Council members are already circulating. India has a very large private health sector (perhaps the largest in the world) which has contributed positively in some ways, but has also exacerbated the problems of unethical practices like recommending unnecessary medical investigations and over-prescribing medicines.

Private sector interest in medical education has also grown considerably and there is now significant overlap between doctors in the private sector, private hospitals and the medical education business. This gives us an idea of the extent of the problem which needs to be addressed. These practices need to be reigned in urgently so that exploitation of the common people can be stopped. To achieve this we need people of integrity to be at the helm of MCI and definitely not the type of persons that have been reportedly selected.

Towards achieving the goal of transparency and accountability in the functioning of MCI, the health groups suggested measures: selection of individuals who have also worked in the field of medical education rather than selecting pure clinicians; do not appoint and short-list persons with conflicts of interest including practitioners who are primarily from the private sector, that have ethical complaints pending against them or the hospitals they supervise, have private interest in decisions of the MCI including those related to medical education such as changes in the eligibility criteria or relaxation of norms for setting up of medical colleges, etc.; create mechanisms for background checks of potential candidates and eliminate people who do not have a clean track record; and ensure that the decision making process, including the selection of board members is done through a free, non-arbitrary and transparent process.