In what can be said as a significant move that could help India reduce the scarcity of doctors to a certain extent, the Union health ministry has made a move to make an amendment in the present act to facilitate foreign national doctors practice in India. As of now, these doctors can come to teach or
research on a charitabe basis only to India. Along with this, the ministry has also proposed to make an exemption for the Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) to practice medicine here without appearing for the screening test.
The health ministry has inserted these amendments in the newly-proposed National Council of Human Resources in Health (NCHRH) draft bill, which is likely to come to the Cabinet soon. “The foreign national doctors however will be allowed to come and practice for a stipulated time, which will depend on case to case basis,” sources in the health ministry disclosed.
Sources said that the move gains significance as these proposed flexibilities of doctors will help India get specialists from abroad. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad recently said in Parliament that there are over 3,000 Indian doctors who have migrated overseas in the last three years.
The health ministry has also proposed that Overseas Citizens of India (defined by the ministry of overseas Indian affairs) should be allowed to practice medicine here without appearing for the screening test, required till now they want to practice in India.
“The OCI card holders have every right as Indian citizens. They have dual citizenship. With this move we are only trying to expand the definition of citizens of India,” said a senior offiicial in the ministry.