Jharkhand: Review meeting on govt doctors’ private practice order, Medical Protection Act today

Jharkhand Health Minister Banna Gupta has today called a crucial review meeting with all stakeholders over the order on conditional private practice of government doctors and implementation of the Medical Protection Act (MPA) in the state.

The meeting will convene today at Nepal House in Ranchi at 4 pm. The representative of Jharkhand Health Service Association (the frontal organization of government doctors), Indian Medical Association (IMA), additional chief secretary (ACS) health, director of National Health Mission (NHM) and director Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (RIMS) Ranchi have been invited at the review meeting.

As per the office order of the health minister, five agendas have been fixed for review at this meeting. The minister will review the office order of July 15, 2016, which allows conditional permission to the government doctors for private practice.

Though the order was put on hold after a protest in 2016 by the then additional chief secretary of health K Vidyasagar, on August 3, 2022, the health department again issued that order seeking an undertaking from doctors to do private practice with conditions.

The IMA and JHSA strongly protested the order and demanded immediate intervention of Chief Minister Hemant Soren on the issue.

The officials said the health minister would also review different sections of the controversial Clinical Establishment Act (CEA) and how to make it practical while taking care of all sections. Discussion would also be held on the implementation of the Medical Protection Act, which is the long pending demand of the IMA and JHSA.

Apart from this, the health minister would also review different Sections of the PCPNDT Act to make it effective. The dispute of EPF deduction of RIMS Ranchi employees is also on the agenda of the meeting to take its solution.

IMA and JHSA, which have been demanding immediate implementation of the Medical Protection Act for a long time and protesting the conditional private practice of government, have announced the names of their five members delegation for the meeting.

IMA state president Dr AK Singh, vice-president Dr Bimlesh Kumar Singh, secretary Dr Pradip Kumar Singh, Ranchi IMA chapter president Dr Shambhu Prasad, and IMA Hospital Board state chairman Dr RS Das are members of the delegation.

JHSA secretary Dr Bimlesh Kumar Singh would be the lone representative of his organization at the meeting.