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Crucial Register for Medical and Dental Specialists soon to become a reality
The long-awaited, crucial Register for Medical and Dental Specialists will now become a reality, with Parliament on Friday passing unopposed an amendment to the Medical Ordinance.
This will allow the Registrar of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) to keep a Register which includes the names of medical and dental specialists.
Described as a “historic” bill both for medical specialists and also the public, the Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) stressed that it came about due to their “untiring” efforts and the commitment of the Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, the Attorney General’s Department and the support of President Maithripala Sirisena.
The amendment also allows for the specification of the qualifications required for registration as a medical or dental specialist; provides for the SLMC to register the medical and dental specialists with specified qualifications; and provides for making the registration compulsory to practice as a medical or dental specialist in Sri Lanka.
Medical and dental specialists are expected to register within 12 months, once the Act comes into effect.
Giving the backdrop to this important amendment, an AMS representative told the Sunday Times that the SLMC proposed this amendment as far back as 2006.
However, no progress was made until the AMS strongly lobbied the authorities to expedite this matter in 2016.
“Thereafter, many discussions and deliberations were held and the bill was passed on Friday,” the representative said, pointing out that on several occasions individuals and groups of non-specialist medical practitioners tried to sabotage it. This could have been due to such a Register being disadvantageous to them as some of them practice as specialists without the necessary training and certification.
The representative said that there was also false propaganda that this bill would be instrumental in removing the private practice rights of non-specialist medical practitioners. “This bill will not in any way remove the practice rights of any medical practitioner,” he said.
Reiterating that the Specialists’ Register will protect and preserve standards in the health service and ensure the safety and welfare of patients, the AMS source said that earlier the SLMC registered the specialist qualification as an additional qualification in the same Registry and folio where the basic MBBS qualification of a particular medical practitioner was registered.
Worldwide, a Specialist Registry is considered a prerequisite to ensuring standards and safeguarding the public. The patients in Sri Lanka have a right to differentiate between a specialist and a non-specialist and the register would facilitate this, while also enabling the certifying authority to define the required criteria to be a specialist, he said.
It would also help the private health sector to follow and conform to these standards in enrolling specialists, while prohibiting unqualified and partly-qualified people from engaging in specialist practice, he added.