Issuing a notice on June 17, the Nepal Medical Council asked all the registered doctors to update their working station in a timely manner in an effort to maintain a proper record.
According to the Council, the update is needed to analyse the health system, because it helps in knowing the present situation of doctors as well as their distribution across the country.
The Nepal Medical Council (NMC) officials informed that the updating of registration of doctors in timely manner is mandatory as per the NMC Act, 1964 but was not being followed effectively.
Provisions under Section 13 of the Act states that the doctors are required to update the Council within one month of leaving his/her job or changing the address. If the council finds that a doctor has not updated his records, they send a letter to the doctor’s address and wait for three months. If they don’t receive any answer for three months, the council notifies the doctor by publishing a notice in a daily newspaper and wait for three more months.
“The law provides doctors with a time period of seven months in total to update their records if they either change their location or leave their job. If they still don’t update it, we will forward their registration towards the process of revoking it,” said Dr. Krishna Prasad Adhikary, registrar at the NMC.
Doctors can update their registration online. The NMC urges every doctor to complete the process at the earliest.
With the updates, the council would be able to identify the number of registered doctors working in the country and the situation of their distribution.
The NMC data show that there are a total of 28,477 doctors registered in its database as of 2020.
“The ratio of doctors to patients under the basis of our current database shows that there is about one doctor for every 1,000 people in the country, a number that is abysmally low. In addition, the present condition of our health system shows we still don’t have doctors in all places of the country,” said Dr. Adhikary.
As per Dr. Adhikary, updating the records by the doctors will allow the council to find out their numbers in different parts of the country. “Based on those numbers, the government can take steps to properly distribute doctors across the health centres of the country.”
The ones not updating their registration are at risk of having their registration revoked. Timely updates allow NMC to remove the names of registered doctors who died.
“The updates will also show the condition of manpower being produced and used in the country and the steps we need to take to maintain proper equilibrium between doctors and patients. It will help make health service accessible to all,” said Dr. Adhikary.
Source : TRN,
