IMA against open hearing of cases of negligence

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has opposed the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) proposed move to hold public hearing and address medical negligence cases against both the government and private hospitals during a two-day grievance redressal forum being held at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences campus in Mumbai from January 6.

The IMA feels that creating an additional forum for patients to complain without any clear-cut rules or guidelines in place will only add to the ongoing cases of violence against doctors in the society.

In the first-ever instance, NHRC will be holding a two-day public hearing from tomorrow, to hear complaints of human rights violations in the public and private healthcare services in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Rajasthan.

“IMA feels that the right way is to go about doing this is to file complaints with the State Medical Council. It is the duty of the State Medical Council to then decide the case on basis of its merit and refer it to the consumer court for compensation if any deficiency of service is found; refer it to criminal court if they find any violation of IPC or refer it to NHRC if they find any violation of human rights.

“If none of the above is found then the case should be closed on priority to avoid any unnecessary harassment of the doctor,” said Dr S.S. Agarwal, national president and Dr K.K. Aggarwal, secretary-general of IMA.

It is not right to subject a medical doctor to investigation and harassment simultaneously by the police, consumer court, NHRC court and the ethics committee of medical council, the statement said.

IMA has written to the PM to amend the MCI act and give more powers to the medical council. The commission is scheduled to hear around 125 complaints filed against erring hospitals from four states. This includes as many as 55 cases of medical negligence from Maharashtra, 30 each from Gujarat and Rajasthan, and 10 from Goa.