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State proposes to stay registration of homoeopaths till SOP is in place
The government is also trying to placate the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), which has called a strike and plans to intensify the agitation. In a letter to Central MARD president Atharva Shinde, medical education secretary Dheeraj Kumar urged the body to reconsider its stand and withdraw the strike in the larger interest of patients
MUMBAI: Even as doctors continued their strike against the government’s proposed policy to allow homoeopaths to practise allopathy, state medical education minister Hasan Mushrif on Wednesday announced that his department had sent a file to the chief minister to stay their registration under the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) until a committee headed by Anil Bhandari, commissioner (medical education and Ayush), finalises the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
“The law to allow homoeopaths to practise allopathy was passed when Jitendra Awhad was medical education minister,” said Mushrif. “The Indian Medical Association (IMA) had gone to court against this but there was no stay. The high court needs to decide on the case.”
The government is also trying to placate the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), which has called a strike and plans to intensify the agitation. In a letter to Central MARD president Atharva Shinde, medical education secretary Dheeraj Kumar urged the body to reconsider its stand and withdraw the strike in the larger interest of patients.
The department has also written to IMA state president Dr Santosh Kulkarni, pointing out that the conditional registration of homoeopaths had not been initiated by the government but had come directly from orders passed in the pending court case. “The registration is being carried out in a separate register solely to comply with these judicial directions,” the letter stated.
The letter added that concerns raised by the IMA during its July 28 meeting with Mushrif regarding ethics and the scope of practice had been considered, following which a government resolution (GR) was issued on August 3 constituting a committee to frame the SOP. It also assured doctors there would never be parity between MBBS and BHMS graduates and no dilution or mixing of systems of medicine.
Requesting doctors to call off the strike, the letter stated, “The agitation severely hampers patient-care services, particularly at our medical colleges, which function as centres of tertiary and advanced care. It is here that timely and specialised treatment often makes the very difference between life and death for the patients who come to us.”
Dr Pallavi Saple, joint director (medical education) at the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), told HT that resident doctors would continue the strike while maintaining emergency services, casualty departments, emergency operation theatres and ICUs. “We will hold a meeting of the deans of 35 medical colleges, deans of four BMC medical colleges and the Thane and PCMC medical colleges on Thursday morning,” she said.
Resident doctors are currently participating only in emergency services at Mumbai’s major civic hospitals, including Sion, KEM, Nair and Cooper. Although Mushrif said he had proposed stalling the registrations until the SOP was finalised, Central MARD president Dr Atharva Shinde said the agitation would intensify as the government had given no concrete assurances.
In the absence of resident doctors, the BMC managed OPDs at major civic hospitals with senior doctors, medical professors and staff doctors, said Dr Shailesh Mohite, director of medical education and major hospitals for the BMC. “The OPD at Nair Hospital handled 1,132 patients on Wednesday besides conducting 11 major surgeries and 18 minor surgeries apart from regular functioning,” he said. “No surgeries were postponed or cancelled.”
However, the shortage of doctors led to delays. “Unlike the customary eight doctors at the OPD, today only two doctors are handling over 130 patients,” said a doctor at Nair Hospital’s rheumatology department. “I have come all the way from Thane for my monthly check-up,” said patient Alka Konde. “Normally there are over eight doctors and the queues move quicker, but today we will probably get very delayed.”
Services at JJ Hospital were also affected. The hospital carried out only four major surgeries on August 5 against its daily average of 39, while its casualty department attended to only 39 patients compared with the usual 175. No deaths were reported at the hospital.
Meanwhile, the IMA headquarters has threatened a nationwide strike by doctors of modern medicine, including medical students, resident doctors and intern doctors from medical colleges across India, unless the Maharashtra government withdraws its GR permitting registration of Certificate Course in Modern Pharmacology (CCMP)-qualified doctors with the MMC and discontinues the CCMP course itself.
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