Chandigarh:
The Indian Medical Association's decision to hold a meeting of its top officials, a group of 50 top doctors, at a holiday destination in Thailand was reversed on Monday evening after it was questioned by the Punjab Medical Council - a regulatory body under the state government. The Council had demanded that the venue be changed to somewhere within India.
The meeting of the IMA national executive - that includes some of India's leading physicians, neurosurgeons, spine specialists et al - was to be held on November 27 and 28 in Pattaya.
While many doctors criticised the choice as inappropriate, Dr G S Grewal, president of the Punjab Medical Council or PMC, and Dr Arun Mitra, chairman of the council's Ethical Committee, wrote to the IMA president Dr Marthanda Pillai and expressed dismay at the decision to hold meeting in Pattaya. The IMA is a voluntary association of nearly 80,000 Indian doctors and the council's demand is not binding on it.
The two doctors, who have also held positions in the IMA organisation in the past, said the decision is "not only strange but shocking." It lacks logic because the meeting has nothing to do with Thailand, they said in their letter to the IMA president.
Sources in the event's organising committee earlier told NDTV that a budget of Rs 25000 per head has been approved by the IMA accounts committee for the meeting and holding it in Pattaya was cheaper compared to anywhere in India. There is no external funding or sponsorship for the meeting, they said.
The letter said the IMA has a long and credible history of having been led by eminent doctors persons like Dr B C Roy - former chief minister of West Bengal and a physician who received the Bharat Ratna - and Dr A K N Sinha, who worked hard to make the association responsive to the needs of the society. That tradition has to be maintained, it said.
The IMA national executive should discuss the problems of medical profession and health care issues in India but there are enough places within India where it can be done, the letter said.