NEW DELHI: The missing minutes of ethics committee meetings of the Medical Council of India (MCI) is an enduring mystery. No minutes of meetings held since May 2013 have been uploaded for reasons the council chooses not to explain. Even right to information (RTI) applications for making public the minutes have been met with total silence. The ethics committee meetings are where important disciplinary action is decided against errant doctors and cases of medical negligence are taken up.
The website has minutes of the meetings of every other committee, executive committee, post graduate committee, board of governors and general body meetings. It also has minutes of ethics committee meetings up to May 2013. Repeated mails to the MCI president, Dr Jayashree Mehta regarding making public the ethics committee meeting minutes have elicited no response. However, she responds to queries about many other issues reinforcing the notion that it's a deliberate decision to not respond on the issue of ethics committee meeting minutes.
However, the MCI suddenly uploaded the minutes of the ethics committee meeting of July 2014 in which the case of nine diagnostic centres in Delhi being caught paying commissions to doctors was taken up. As soon as queries were sent to the MCI president asking why these minutes were selectively uploaded, she did not respond but the July meeting minutes were soon taken off the website.
Dr Sudhir Thakur had filed a case of medical negligence in the death of his brother in a Kolkata hospital. His case was taken up in the June 28-29, 2013, ethics committee meeting. He filed an RTI query in the MCI seeking the minutes of the meeting. But the MCI claimed that the minutes of the June 2013 ethics committee meeting was put up in the board of governors' (BoG) meeting of October 2013 and that the BoG had raised objection to items 11 and 27 in the minutes. However, this appears to be a false statement made by the MCI as a look at the minutes of the BoG meeting available on the MCI website shows that the minutes did not come up for consideration during the October BoG meeting.
The MCI's RTI reply also claimed the new ethics committee (of the current MCI dispensation) reconsidered the two items and also item number 23 (which was not mentioned as being asked for review by BoG) and placed it for further decision in the next meeting. But since no minutes of any further ethics committee meets have been uploaded no one knows what happened in the meetings to reconsider these issues.
Dr Thakur, when informed by the MCI that the June ethics committee meeting had exonerated all the accused doctors, filed a case in the high court against this decision. On November 26, 2011, the high court ordered the MCI to produce the minutes of the ethics committee meetings of June 2013 and January 2014. But the minutes are yet to come up in the public domain on the MCI website.
The website has minutes of the meetings of every other committee, executive committee, post graduate committee, board of governors and general body meetings. It also has minutes of ethics committee meetings up to May 2013. Repeated mails to the MCI president, Dr Jayashree Mehta regarding making public the ethics committee meeting minutes have elicited no response. However, she responds to queries about many other issues reinforcing the notion that it's a deliberate decision to not respond on the issue of ethics committee meeting minutes.
However, the MCI suddenly uploaded the minutes of the ethics committee meeting of July 2014 in which the case of nine diagnostic centres in Delhi being caught paying commissions to doctors was taken up. As soon as queries were sent to the MCI president asking why these minutes were selectively uploaded, she did not respond but the July meeting minutes were soon taken off the website.
Dr Sudhir Thakur had filed a case of medical negligence in the death of his brother in a Kolkata hospital. His case was taken up in the June 28-29, 2013, ethics committee meeting. He filed an RTI query in the MCI seeking the minutes of the meeting. But the MCI claimed that the minutes of the June 2013 ethics committee meeting was put up in the board of governors' (BoG) meeting of October 2013 and that the BoG had raised objection to items 11 and 27 in the minutes. However, this appears to be a false statement made by the MCI as a look at the minutes of the BoG meeting available on the MCI website shows that the minutes did not come up for consideration during the October BoG meeting.
The MCI's RTI reply also claimed the new ethics committee (of the current MCI dispensation) reconsidered the two items and also item number 23 (which was not mentioned as being asked for review by BoG) and placed it for further decision in the next meeting. But since no minutes of any further ethics committee meets have been uploaded no one knows what happened in the meetings to reconsider these issues.
Dr Thakur, when informed by the MCI that the June ethics committee meeting had exonerated all the accused doctors, filed a case in the high court against this decision. On November 26, 2011, the high court ordered the MCI to produce the minutes of the ethics committee meetings of June 2013 and January 2014. But the minutes are yet to come up in the public domain on the MCI website.
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