National Medical Education Bill will be endorsed in next meeting: Bhattarai

Reporters Nepal

Publish date : 23 January, 2019

KATHMANDU, Jan 23: Nepal Communist Party (NCP) standing committee member and lawmaker Yogesh Bhattarai said that the National Medical Education Bill will be endorsed at the next meeting of the parliament.

The government on Tuesday pushed the controversial Bill at the parliament meeting for the endorsement but the house proceedings was put off till January 25 following the obstruction from the main opposition party Nepali Congress (NC).

“The Bill will be tabled and endorsed in the next meeting,” said Bhattarai at an interaction program organized by Reporters Club Nepal on Wednesday.

“If the opposition blocks the minister to table the Bill from the rostrum, we will endorse it from the seats,” he added, ”Nepali Congress has already brought this trend before. When the lawmakers of the then UML obstructed the parliament and blocked the minister from tabling the bill related to local level, Speaker Ram Chandra Poudel had instructed the minister to present the bill from his respective seat,” he added.

Bhattarai said that the Bill was prepared following a thorough parliamentary process and requested the NC lawmakers not to obstruct the house.

“NC has been participating in the process before. Therefore, it does not suit a democratic party like NC protest at the last hour,” he furthered.

He also termed Dr KC as selfish and wrong and added, “he has not alternative but to step back,”

Dr KC has been staging 16th hunger strike for the past two weeks after the the Education and Health Committee of the legislature parliament endorsed the report on Medical Education Bill against the agreement forged between Dr KC and the government on July 26 last year.

Bhattarai also assured that the government will bear the responsibility of Girija Prasad Koirala Respiratory Hospital and Sushil Koirala Cancer Hospital.

However NC has accused the government of trying to dissolve the two hospitals established in the name of late NC leaders by not endorsing their proposal through the cabinet.