JOIN USThe proposal for scrapping the Medical Council of India (MCI) and replacing it with a National Medical Commission and for a restructuring of the country’s medical education system will be widely welcomed. The proposal has been made in a draft bill which was prepared by a committee consisting of the Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya and other experts. The bill seeks to replace the Indian Medical Act, 1956, and to form a new regulatory body which will take over the responsibilities of the MCI. Efforts have been made in this direction in the past and many committees, including a Parliamentary committee, have made many recommendations. The new bill is based on some of these recommendations and extensive consultations with all stakeholders. There have been judicial strictures and a lot of public criticism about the functioning of the MCI which has a tainted reputation and has been seen to have failed in its mandate.
The proposed Commission will have different boards to look after the functions that the MCI was discharging – for graduate and post-graduate medical education, for registration of colleges, for accreditation and assessment and for monitoring professional ethics. It was wrong and unwise to burden a single body with all these functions. The MCI made a business of all these functions. Members of the new body are proposed to be selected by an independent panel. Till now, MCI members were elected and it is known that the elections were often rigged. Every aspect of medical education needs to be cleaned up and reformed. This is important because of the primacy of the health sector and the need to expand medical education. It is necessary to set up more colleges to increase the number of doctors and specialists. There is the need to re-establish the credibility of the regulatory body. An independent body with decentralised responsibilities and working with coordination is best placed to perform the many ta-sks which the MCI failed to perform.
The MCI was considered to be too close to private interests which have a strong presence in medical education. The admission system and the fee structure are skewed in favour of these interests. Admissions will now be made through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). The bill does not envisage the new body regulating the fee structure. A fair mechanism should be in place to determine the fees. The bill also prescribes a new category of ‘for profit’ colleges to supplement existing colleges. The idea needs more clarity. The existing colleges are in actual practice ‘for profit’ colleges only. The bill sh-ould be finalised, passed and implemented at the earliest.