Doctors accepting expensive gifts and sponsorships from pharmaceutical companies may now lose their licence to practice. Coming down heavily on doctors who have nexus with the pharmaceutical companies and promote their products, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has made major modifications in the Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics regulations for the doctors.
However, the MCI has done away with the blanket ban on gifts imposed last month when the regulations were first issued.
The MCI has now recommended various degrees of punishment for doctors who accept gifts worth Rs 1000 or more from any pharmaceutical or allied healthcare company.
The punishments range from censure (for accepting gifts valued between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000 rupees) to removal from the Indian or State Medical Register for a period of more than one year (for accepting gifts worth more than 1,00,000
rupees).
The new recommendations also address other grey areas including sponsorship of travel and lodging of medical practitioners participating in a conference, the issue of monetary grants and the question of clinical research funding. The monetary limits and the punitive clauses for infringing any of these
regulations are similar to those defined for gifts.
A medical practitioner can also not accept any travel facility inside or outside the country, including rail, road, air, ship, cruise tickets, paid vacation, etc. from any pharmaceutical or allied healthcare industry or their representatives for self and family members for vacation or for attending conferences, seminars, workshops, as a delegate.
“With these recommendations what we are looking at is strict implementation of the regulations. It seems that there was some
ambiguity on a few of the clauses in the regulations. By clearly defining these clauses we have resolved any confusions about the exact nature of these regulations. Once the modified regulations are in place it will be the duty of all the stakeholders to make sure that the regulations are implemented in letter and spirit”, said Dr Ketan Desai, MCI president.
Desai said that these modifications have been made in the wake of popular demand for a review of some of the clauses in the regulations.
Ever since the regulations have been issued it has been felt by doctors and industry that some of the clauses in the regulations leave a lot of room for ambiguity.
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