Jharkhand health minister Banna Gupta has given his nod to the Medical Protection Bill, which is likely to be tabled in the monsoon session of the state assembly scheduled from September 3 to September 9, officials from the minister’s office said on Saturday.

Provisions from the Medical Protection Act (MPA) of different states have been incorporated in Jharkhand’s Medical Protection Bill to not only ensure safety for doctors but also provide consumer rights and right to affordable treatment to patients, officials from Gupta’s office said.

“Implementation of a Medical Protection Act has been a long-pending demand of the medical fraternity in our state. We have incorporated necessary changes in the bills drafted for this purpose earlier and tried to ensure benefits for doctors as well as patients through the bill,” said Gupta.

During a felicitation programme for Covid warriors in the state capital last week, the health minister had said that he has had several rounds of discussion with Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Arun Kumar Singh over the implementation of a MPA and the state would soon introduce a bill to implement laws for protection of healthcare professionals.

The Jharkhand unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has raised repeated concern over incidents of violence against healthcare workers even during the first and second wave of Covid-19. Several incidents of assaults on doctors and medical students were reported in state-run hospitals across Jharkhand since the formation of the state back in 2000, triggering protests by medical practitioners.

The MPA has already been implemented in 18 states in India and IMA wants Jharkhand to be the 19th state to implement the law. The Cabinet had approved the MPA in Jharkhand in 2017. Later, a select committee too gave a report on it. But it was never passed by the state assembly, sources said. The Act mandates imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of Rs 50,000 for attacks on doctors, nurses and hospital establishments.

In June 2019, doctors were thrashed by attendants of a patient at Rinchi Hospital in Ranchi, triggering widespread protests by doctors, which required the intervention of then chief secretary D.K Tiwari to resume healthcare services in the state. In February 2018, a doctor was heckled by attendants of a patient at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) prompting medicos at the hospital to go on an indefinite strike. A couple of months later, in June, a nurse was thrashed by attendants of a patient who died in the hospital. This incident also caused uproar by RIMS staff. Similar incidents were also reported in Dhanbad and Jamshedpur, doctors said.