Standing Committee on Health rips apart the functioning of MCI - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 31, 2016
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has always been in the news for the wrong reasons. Now, the parliamentary standing committee on Health came down heavily on the functioning of MCI in its 92nd report and noted that the MCI has failed in all of its mandates.
The Medical Council of India (MCI) is a statutory body entrusted with the responsibility of establishing and maintaining high standards of medical education in India. The MCI has always been in the news for the wrong reasons. Now the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health in its 92 report came down heavily on various aspects of the functioning of MCI.
‘MCI has failed on all its mandates’
The department related standing committee on Health & Family Welfare looked into the functioning of the MCI in its latest report. The committee is chaired by Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav, a Rajya Sabha member from the Samajwadi party. The committee has 10 members from the Rajya Sabha and 21 members from the Lok Sabha.
In its scathing report, the standing committee felt that the MCI has repeatedly failed on all its mandates over the years. The committee noted the following as some of the prominent failures of MCI.
The committee also felt that the onus of failure has to be shared by successive governments both at the center and states also. The committee noted that the medical education is fast sliding downwards and quality has been hugely side-lined in the context of increasing commercialization of medical education and practice. The committee further noted that incremental tweaks won’t be enough and that a complete overhaul of the system is necessary. The committee observed that MCI is an opaque body with very little transparency.
‘Doctor – Population ratio should guide the setting up of new Medical Colleges’
The committee made a number of recommendations to overhaul the system. Some of the important recommendations of the committee are the following,