To ensure that no non-qualified person practises in modern scientific system of medicine in the State, Nagaland Medical Council (NMC) has provided registration to 1,058 medical practitioners, out of which 423 are specialists and 630 are general practitioners. This was stated by NMC president Dr Joyce Z Angami during an interaction with Nagaland Post at her office chamber at Para Medical Training Institute (PMTI) here on Monday.
Joyce explained that after thorough scrutiny of their degrees and institutions they had studied, the doctors were given registration under the live register of the council. She said majority of the registered medical practitioners were specialised in Medicine, adding there were surgeons, oncologists and urologists too, besides one specialist each in nuclear medicine and immuno-hematology.
The NMC president further emphasised that doctors must give enough time to patients, listen to them and explain their illness to them in detail. She, however, regretted that majority of the doctors today did not give enough time to their patients nor understood them, especially the poor and uneducated, which often led to miscommunication and fear among the latter.
She remarked many doctors took their responsibilities very casually and somehow wanted to finish their official duties, whereas the patients who hardly understood considered their ailments as something terrible, often leading to anxiety and distress among them.
On the allegation that many government doctors continued to practise in private nursing homes after attending morning duties and even after availing non-practising allowances, Joyce observed that their conscience perhaps allowed them to do so.
Calling for stopping this practice, she reminded such doctors that they were robbing the government.
She also urged the State government to revamp the Nagaland Health Care Establishment Act for streamlining many things. Dr. Joyce asserted that NMC was committed to work with diligence and in fairness by using the same yardstick for all practitioners of modern medicine in the State irrespective of their tribal, caste, political or bureaucratic affiliations.
NMC, a statutory body that has direct linkage with Medical Council of India, was constituted by the State government in 2014.