Doctors Practicing in Bengal Required to get Clearance from Medical Council under New Policy

Kolkata: The West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) is going to introduce a new policy soon, under which, doctors practicing in the State will have to get clearance from the State Medical Council if they have medical registrations from any State other than West Bengal.

Under this new policy, the doctors, who have registration from outside states, will be required to register their names with the State's medical council. This will not only be applicable for the doctors associated with the state-run hospitals, but also for doctors linked with private hospitals, including those running private chambers.

Commenting on the matter, an office-bearer of the State Medical Council informed IANS, "A detailed notification in this regard will be issued shortly. As a first step, all the private hospitals in the state have been asked to furnish a list of the medical practitioners associated with them."

In the initial stage, WBMC has already sought the list of doctors from seven top corporate hospitals in the city. These big corporate hospitals in the state have been asked to furnish the details of the list of doctors associated with the state medical council within the next 15 days. The hospital authorities have also been asked to furnish the details of the Aadhaar and PAN cards of the doctors attached to them.

Consequently, all the private hospitals and nursing homes in the State will be asked to submit the doctors' list in a phased manner, adds Millennium Post.

Various private hospitals in West Bengal have doctors from outside Bengal. In fact, doctors who graduated from foreign countries also practice in private hospitals in Kolkata.

Also Read: Finally, NMC Announces A Common National Medical Register for All Doctors

As per the latest media report by Millennium Post, the medical council in Bengal is introducing these new rules as it noted while examining the medical negligence cases that some of the doctors had medical registration with some other States. In such cases, the Commission cannot take any steps against these doctors. 

City-based oral and maxillofacial surgeon Srijon Mukherjee told IANS that this condition of mandatory enrollment with the state medical council for all doctors practising in the state was always there.

"The only thing is that it was never strictly implemented. Probably, the state medical council is now going to implement the same more strictly. Whatever it might be, enrolment of all doctors practising in West Bengal irrespective of their state of registration with the state medical council is absolutely necessary. I agree with the council that it will help in fixing accountability in the event of any complaint of medical negligence," he said.

Millennium Post adds that the doctors having registration from other states may not be able to treat Swasthya Sathi patients in the private hospitals in West Bengal. Previously, it was mandatory for all the doctors from Bengal to enlist their names in the Swasthya Sathi portal. 

The State Government, which has a zero-tolerance policy in respect of Swasthya Sathi-related issues, is eager to fix more accountability on the doctors involved in the process of extending various health services free of cost.

Meanwhile, last year in May, the National Medical Commission (NMC) announced introducing a common National Medical Register for all the registered medical practitioners of the country. NMC made this announcement in the form of a Gazette notification titled "Registration of Medical Practitioners and Licence to Practice Medicine Regulations, 2023."

The notification spelled out that there would be a common medical register titled National Medical Register that will be maintained by the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) under the NMC.

It was announced by NMC that this National Medical Register would contain all the entries of the registered medical practitioners of all State Registers maintained by the various State Medical Councils. Further, this register will be made public on the official website of NMC and will contain relevant information about a medical practitioner including registration number, name, father's name, date of registration, place of working (name of hospital/institute), medical qualification including additional medical qualification, speciality, year of passing, university, name of the institute/university where qualification obtained.

Earlier, Dr. Yogender Malik, a member of the NMC Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) and the Head of the NMC Media Division had explained that with the introduction of the NMR, there will be a common registration number and the process of registration will be different from that of issuing licence.

Further explaining the new system and the distinguishing factor between registration and licence, Dr. Malik had mentioned that the UID generated from the NMR would be constant and there will be an option for doctors to apply for licence in various States. He also mentioned that this entire registration process and obtaining license will be done online.

Also Read: Will doctors be able to practice in multiple states? New Rules on License Transfer leaves medical fraternity confused