A very interesting matter came up during the recently concluded 2-day 12th session of the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) pertaining to medical negligence and malpractice. Initiating the discussion, NPF legislature party leader Kuzholuzo (Azo) Neinu proposed the enactment of a bill-titled Nagaland Medical Negligence Bill to tackle various cases of medical negligence and malpractice so as to restore trust of public on the medical profession. He also said medical negligence was an act omission by a healthcare provider which was a deviation from accepted standards of practice in medical community. Azo said his proposal for the medical negligence bill was necessitated since Sections 88 to 92 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) protects doctors from criminal liability on the premise that such an act was done in good faith for benefit of a person without con\u00acsent. The issue raised by Azo is pertinent and crucial. Medical negligence has become one of the serious issues in the country in recent years. Even the medical profession, which is known to be one of the noblest professions, is not immune to negligence which often results in the death of the patient or complete\/partial impairment or any other misery which has adverse effects on the patient\u2019s health. Azo also said that the medical profession today at least in Nagaland, is poorly regulated .It may be noted that the general opinion of people over the profession is that it has become like a business profit making industry not only in Nagaland but all over. There have been several cases of malpractices where unnecessary tests or even surgery are conducted for earning money. These are often hazardous to patients. As former medical minister Azo also made some startling revelations that government as well as private hospitals were functioning without necessary medical equipments and thereby compelling many patients to seek needed medical treatment outside the state. Another unethical practice mentioned was about many government doctors were drawing Non Practising Allowance (NPA) and yet continuing to practice in private clinics or hospitals. When the government of Nagaland has consistently maintained that it was according health care as top priority, Azo took on the department of health and family welfare (DoHFW) over illogical posting of doctors. He cited the case of an anaesthetist who was posted at a government hospital where there was no surgeon. There are also several instances where government hospitals do not even have the basic required equipments such as X-ray machines, ICUs, cardiac monitor, oxygen cylinders, bandage gauss or morphine etc. Sometimes medical laboratory technicians are not available in some hospitals where even simple maternity cases cannot be undertaken. Two doctors among the legislators- Dr Nicky of NDPP and Dr. Chumben Murry also of NDPP, maintained that all doctors cannot be painted with the same brush. Responding to Azo\u2019s proposal , Dr. Murry said that rather than the proposal for a Medical Negligence Bill, what was needed was for strengthening rules and regulations of Medical Council and penal laws dealing with medical negligence so that disposal of cases could be fast-tracked. While laws may exist on the issue, what is needed is for the Nagaland Medical Council (NMC) to be more proactive and reflect the weaknesses and shortcomings of the profession and suggest remedial measures for the benefit of the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A very interesting matter came up during the recently concluded 2-day 12th session of the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) pertaining to medical negligence and malpractice. Initiating the discussion, NPF legislature party leader Kuzholuzo (Azo) Neinu proposed the enactment of a bill-titled Nagaland Medical Negligence Bill to tackle various cases of medical negligence and malpractice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}