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The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Tuesday, 2 January, called off its 12-hour countrywide shutdown of out-patient department (OPD) services at all private hospitals in the country, after Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda agreed to its demand and sent the National Medical Commission Bill 2017 for review to a select committee. Talks were held with the IMA a day earlier.
The IMA called for a 12-hour shutdown of all private hospitals in the country on Tuesday, 2 January, to protest the "anti-people and anti-patient" National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017 that seeks to replace the Medical Council of India (MCI).
The government in the Rajya Sabha maintained that the NMC Bill that seeks to replace the MCI with a new body would be beneficial to the medical profession.
The IMA said the Bill will "cripple" the functioning of medical professionals by making them completely answerable to the bureaucracy and non-medical administrators.
Earlier, raising the issue, Samajwadi Party’s Naresh Agarwal said many patients have died due to the strike called to oppose the Bill that will enable superseding of the elected medical professionals' body.
Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the government should take initiative to end the strike.
While private hospitals in other states followed IMA's call to keep OPDs shut for 12 hours, the national capital saw a mixed response.
Several big corporate hospitals, including Apollo Hospitals, BLK Super Specialty Hospital, and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, among dozen others, chose to keep their OPDs operational.
(With inputs from ANI, IANS, PTI)
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