Central Health Council meeting on July 9

Meet likely to endorse proposed National Council for Human Resources in Health

Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry is likely to convene a meeting on July 9 of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare where Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is expected to seek endorsement of the proposed National Council for Human Resources in Health to retain medical education as well as regulation of professional practice in health sector.

The Central Health Council that is represented by all State Health Ministers, health-related statutory bodies and research institutions is being convened just after the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) — the highest advisory body to the Centre and States on education — gave its go-ahead to the draft National Commission on Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill proposed by a task force constituted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Overarching commission

The draft seeks to establish an overarching NCHER subsuming all education-related functions of all statutory councils, including the Medical Council of India, Dental Council of India, the Nursing Council and other institutions related to medical education. The draft NCHER Bill proposes that all regulation in professional practice in medical and allied field of health sector should be in the domain of the proposed National Council for Human Resources in Health.
Turf war

While the turf war over medical education has been on for a while now, the Prime Minister's Office has written to senior officers of both the Ministries that medical education would remain with the Health and Family Welfare Ministry. On the other hand, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry has been saying that the NCHER was based on the lines of the Yashpal Committee and the National Knowledge Commission recommendations.
Sibal's stand

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has recently taken the stand that the draft Bill was the “property” of the task force and any final decision would be taken by the government after inter-ministerial consultations. Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has also started State consultations on the proposed National Council on Human Resource for Health.

President Pratibha Patil in her joint address to Parliament last year had announced setting up of the two councils but somewhere down the line it was realised that the two had some overlapping areas.