Minutes of the meeting of IMA Padma Forum Initiative
 
A meeting of the Padma Awardees was held on 28th December, 2014 at IMA House, New Delhi.  The following Padma Awardees and office bearers of IMA  were present:
 
Padma Awardees: Dr. Madan Mohan, Dr. D K Bhargava, Dr. K K Sethi, Dr. Arvind Lal, Dr. Kalyan Banerjee, Dr. G K Mani, Dr. K K Aggarwal, Dr. Prem Kakkar, Dr Ashok Grover
 
 
Office bearers of IMA: Dr. Vinay Aggarwal, Dr. R. N. Tandon, Dr. Anil Goyal, Dr. Harish Gupta, Dr. Ramesh Dutta, Dr. Manjul Mehta, Dr Rajiv Ardey, 
Dr. Ravi Malik, Dr. B B Wadhwa
 
The following concerns and issues were shortlisted where both IMA and Padma Awardee Forum will work together:
 
1.    To analyze and go into the route cause as to why medical professionals indulge into cuts, commission and corruption
2.     To jointly raise the issues with CGHS regarding consultation fee of Rs.150/- and also irrational approved rates for various medical and surgical procedures.
3.     As lawyers are designated as advocates and Sr. advocates; in government departments also medical professionals are graded differently.  A uniform grading of specialists in private sector should also be created by IMA with or without clearance from MCI.  In this way, sr. doctors will be  able to differentiate themselves from others.  The fee structure for them may also be uniformly different at a national level where they charged individually or through medi-claim/CGHS/Public sector)
4.     No target should be given to doctors whether in Govt. or Private sector.  The forum was concerned after seeing a few documents on Bilasppur where targets of doing 100-250 sterilizations surgeries in one day were issued by CMO to Govt. doctors.  Similarly, monthly targets are given in private sectors to doctors for number of interventions. A target often lead to compromise in safety and quality.
5.     It was decided to debate the process of re-registration in medical profession.  On the contrary, emphasis should be done on making education available to every doctor after he has passed his MBBS.  RE-registration, in any case, should not be linked to paying registration fee again or completing the number of CME hours.
6.    The joint forum will also look into the problems faced by doctors in terms of requirement of multiple registrations in running a clinic
7.    The joint forum also raised concern about the Govt. Policy where the foreigners cannot be transplanted with Cornea, unless there is NOC from the govt. based eye centers.  
8.    The joint forum also raised the issue about the pay scales of  doctors of Jr./Sr./Specialist doctors  which should be revised.  The pay scales & privileges of Professors should be the same as that of a High Court Judge and Secretary, Govt. of India.  
9.    The joint forum wanted IMA to be in every Policy making.  
10.    The joint forum said that efforts should be made to take PCPNDT  out of the preview of doctors, who are not practicing OBst. Ultrasounds.
11.     There is a Nodal officer for identifying BPL patients in various Pvt. Hospitals in the same way, Nodal Officer should also be there for identifying all notifiable diseases.
12.     The Generic Vs. Brand Drugs controversy should be solved for once and doctors should be instructed to write quality, safe and cheapest drugs to the community.
13.     IMA & Specialized associations should work together for the interest of the community.  
14.    Non MBBS doctors should not be allowed to sign the lab/imaging reports. 
15.    The CGHS charges criteria of LI-L5 etc etc should not be the criteria for deciding the prices.