The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India condemned the dissolution of the Medical Council of India by the nationalist RSS-controlled BJP government.
ICP, 6 October 2018
According to the statement of the Communist Party of India (CPI), the dissolution of the Medical Councli was done in such hurry that the government had to bypass Parliament. The Party noted that 'under Modi’s ordinance raj, regulatory bodies like the MCI which is responsible for ensuring high standards in medical education and good ethics in medical practice have become obstacles in government’s plan to fully commercialise and privatise education, including professional ones. Now instead of Democratic elections, it will be only nominated body.'
In the statement, it was underlined that the handover took place 'overnight to the hands of business interests, which in turn would kill social interest and service attitude of future doctors'. The statement said, 'The already over-privatized healthcare in our country will further get expensive and out of reach of majority of citizens. There will be regularisation of fee only in 40 per cent seats and 60 per cent are left to the mercy of private college managements.'
The CPI called the central authorities to discuss the matter seriously with all stakeholders and ensure 'a democratic regulatory setup to provide quality and meaningful medical education with reasonable fee, for imparting ethics in the profession and to eradicate all kinds of commercial interest in imparting the highly essential medical education'. In the Draft Political Resolution of the 23rd Congress of the CPI in April 2018 the Party had stated the following:
'Under shadows of newly christened Niti Aayog. (National Institution for Transforming India), the National Health Policy 2015 is cast in a full blown neo-liberal framework: from the perspective of toiling masses, the NHP-2015 have disastrous impact on public health while committing itself to provision of private health care, the NHP talks of “strategic purchasing” of secondary and territory health care form private sector, which will lead to further pauperization of poor people. Even government facilities are being privatised.'