Three and half months after the national medical register portal was launched, less than 6,500 doctors have registered and only 284 of these have been approved. At the current pace of registration, it would take 40 years to register the estimated 12 lakh doctors currently practicing in India to complete the approval process of those registered.
Union health minister J P Nadda inaugurated National Medical Register (NMR) Portal of National Medical Commission (NMC) for registration of all MBBS doctors eligible for registration in India. “The uniqueness of NMR is that it is linked with Aadhaar ID of the doctors which ensures the individual’s authenticity,” said a statement issued by health ministry. It added that NMR portal, a combined effort of National Health Authority (NHA) and NMC, will ensure dynamic, authentic, and consolidated data on doctors.
Though govt claimed that “the speedy and easy registration process on the portal will facilitate the timely updation of the data”, in reality, doctors have been facing several problems with registration.
“I registered on the portal on Aug 24, the day after it was opened. The Kerala State medical council approved and confirmed my registration to NMC. Yet during the last 110 days, my application has been returned with irrelevant queries four times, which include queries on the change in the names of the University and the state medical council. They have asked me to file an affidavit regarding the name in Aadhaar card not matching the existing registration, which predates Aadhaar. Even today, my registration is not done,” said Dr KV Babu, an ophthalmologist and an RTI activist whose RTI application revealed how slowly the registration process is happening.
The NMR is mandated under Section 31 of the NMC Act, 2019. “If they cannot put together a digital database for just 12 lakh doctors who come through a highly regulated education system, can you imagine them being able to create databases for other categories in healthcare who would be well over 50 lakh and whose training is very poorly regulated?” asked a senior doctor who retired from a government college.