Patients still without right to appeal state med panel decisions | India News

The National Medical Commission has not made a provision for patients to appeal against decisions of state medical councils in the new professional conduct regulations. The health ministry too hasn’t yet placed before Parliament a bill to amend the NMC Act 2019 to give patients this right, though the draft amendment has been ready since last December. As the law currently stands, only doctors have a right to appeal against a state council’s decision on complaints of medical negligence or professional misconduct.

In the absence of a provision giving patients’ the right to appeal, in just seven months (March to September 2022) the NMC rejected 65 appeals from patients citing “their non-maintainability under section 30(3) of the NMC Act”. This information was revealed on December 6, 2022 in response to an RTI application seeking data on the number of appeals of non-doctors rejected by the Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB).
Section 30(3) states that a medical practitioner or professional who is aggrieved by any action taken by a state medical council can file an appeal to the EMRB, and that the decision of the EMRB would be binding on the state council. As it only mentions medical practitioner, the NMC has been rejecting the appeals of all non-doctors.

The health ministry issued a notice on December 29, 2022 on the introduction of the National Medical Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2022. In the draft of the amendment bill, there was an inclusion “to provide provision for patients/their relatives/complainant to prefer appeal in the Ethics and Medical Registration Board/National Medical Commission against the decision/action of State Medical Council in complaints related to medical negligence/professional misconduct”. However, to an RTI query on this, the health ministry on July 4 said the bill was yet to be finalised.