National Medical Register glitches? Health Ministry says NHA addressing all doctor registration issues
New Delhi: The technical support for the development and maintenance of the National Medical Register (NMR) portal for doctors is provided by the National Health Authority (NHA), the Union Minister of State for Health, Smt Anupriya Patel recently informed the Lok Sabha.
Minister Patel further added that any technical issues faced by the doctors on the NMR portal are also addressed and resolved by the Union MoS Health, Smt. Anupriya Patel.
The Union MoS Health shared these details while responding to the queries raised by Parliament member Shri Balashowry Vallabhaneni, who sought to know whether the Government proposed to set up the National Medical Register (NMR) and by what time it is likely to be set up, whether the proposed NMR is pending since a long time and for which reasons, whether in the absence of NMR, hospitals are not able to verify the credentials of doctors, whether in the absence of NMR, the National Medical Commission (NMC) could verify only a few hundreds out of estimated three lakh doctors practicing in the country, whether it is true that the doctors were facing problems in registering themselves on the NMR portal, and also about the manner in which the Government was planning to address the same.
In response, Minister Patel informed, "The National Medical Register (NMR) has already been launched on 23 August 2024. It has been established to consolidate all statelevel registration records into a unified nationallevel database, providing a centralized platform for verification and oversight of licensed medical practitioners across India. Meanwhile, the credentials of Registered Medical Practitioners (RMPs) continue to be maintained in the State Register by their respective State Medical Council (SMC), based on the state where the practitioner holds registration."
"The technical support for the development and maintenance of the NMR Portal is provided by the National Health Authority (NHA), which also addresses and resolves any technical issues faced by doctors on the portal as and when required," he further informed.
The National Medical Commission (NMC) introduced the National Medical Register (NMR) to have a consolidated list of allopathic doctors practising in the country. This dynamic database will be a central repository of all registered doctors and the verification of the authenticity of these doctors will be done by Aadhaar IDs.
All the MBBS doctors who are registered on the Indian Medical Register (IMR) have to register again on the NMR, the NMC said in a public notice last year, and added that all medical colleges/institutions, state medical councils (SMCs) are inter-linked on the portal.
To complete the registration process on the NMR, the doctors were told to have their Aadhaar ID, a digital copy of their MBBS degree certificate, and the registration certificate of the State Medical Council/Medical Council of India.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that facing troubles in the process of registration in the National Medical Register (NMR), the doctors had urged the authorities concerned to simplify the process by automatically converting the State registration into national registration by the Central Government. The doctors had alleged that they were facing a mismatch regarding the details of the Aadhar card, State medical board registration, including spellings of names and surnames, etc.
Also Read: Confusion over NMR Registration: Doctors Urge NMC to Simplify Process
