Day after Lok Sabha okays National Medical Commission Bill, IMA calls for nationwide strike on Wednesday opposing draft law

Terming the clearance of the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2019 by Lok Sabha as “anti-people, anti-poor, anti-students, anti-democratic and draconian in nature” the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Tuesday decided to stage a ’token strike’ on 31 July against the passage of the bill_._  [caption id=“attachment_7074851” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Doctors hold protest against the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, 2019, outside Nirman Bhawan. ANI[/caption] On Monday, when the bill was passed in the Lower House of Parliament, over 5000 doctors, medical students and healthcare professionals from across the country staged a protest against the bill following a call given by IMA, with a march being held from AIIMS to Nirman Bhawan in New Delhi. Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan moved the bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday. “The NMC is the worst bill ever introduced in the medical education system and unfortunately a health minister, who is also a doctor, is adamant in destroying his own education system. We will not accept this atrocity at any cost,” national president of IMA, Santanu Sen, said. “The proposed bill is anti-people, anti-poor, anti-students, anti-democratic and draconian in nature. Medical students were part of this pious education system have also joined hands to protect our education system and uproot this NMC bill,” Sen said. The protestors were detained from near Nirman Bhawan before the strike was called off on Monday. Since its introduction in Parliament, the medical fraternity voiced protest against the Bill with thousands of its copies being burnt at various organisations across the nation. National president-elect, IMA, Rajan Sharma, said the addition of Section 32 in the bill will only legalise quackery by empowering the community health providers to practice medicine, thereby endangering the lives of people. “There has never been a blatant pro-rich bias of this intensity. The NMC bill is a pro-private management bill paving the way for widespread corruption,” Sharma said. With inputs from PTI