Health Bulletin 12/ December/ 2024

Doctors have sought a review of the recent Supreme Court judgment upholding the liability of doctors under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

A review petition in this regard has been filed before the Apex Court bench by the Medico-Legal Society of India against the order dated November 7, 2024, through which the top court bench comprising Justices B.R. Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra, and K.V. Vishwanathan had refused to reconsider the 1995 judgment in the case of Indian Medical Association v VP Shantha, which brought medical professionals under the ambit of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (as re-enacted in 2019).

The Union Minister of State for Health Smt. Anupriya Patel informed the Rajya Sabha recently that the Central Government has no data on disciplinary actions taken against registered medical practitioners (RMPs) who failed to prescribe generic names of medicines.

In response to the queries raised by Rajya Sabha member Shri Saktisinh Gohil, the Union MoS Health informed that "No data related to number of disciplinary proceedings and penalties against RMPs in the past five years is maintained centrally by the Ministry."

There is still no relief for the postgraduate medical aspirants who had filed a plea seeking transparency in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Postgraduate (NEET-PG) 2024 examination as the Supreme Court has once again deferred the hearing of the matter.

Even though the matter was listed for hearing on Tuesday i.e. December 10, the top court bench deferred it. The matter is likely to be taken up on January 7, 2025. This is the seventh time that the matter has been deferred since the filing of the petitions in September 2024, Edex has reported.

A recent Cyber fraud case has highlighted the growing trend of doctors being targeted by online scams. A 50-year-old doctor from Banjara Hills fell victim to a cryptocurrency scam, losing a staggering Rs 11.1 crore over a period of three months, driven by the hope of high returns. The Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) has launched an investigation into the incident.

Although many warnings have been issued to alert people about the possibility of fraud in the country, the doctor has become a victim of a fraudulent forex trading platform run by scammers posing as representatives of a reputable company who took advantage of his trust and duped him.