National Bioethics Conference 2010

[Guest guest]

National Bioethics Conference 2010

All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

November 17, 2010 – November 20, 2010

Background and vision

Indian Journal of Medical Ethics,(www.ijme.in) a peer reviewed indexed journal

(called earlier as Medical Ethics and Issues in Medical Ethics) materialized in

1993 as a forum for discussion on healthcare ethics and for scientific exchange

and debates on bioethics. As a pioneer and leader in this field, it had to play

the role of fostering commitment to bioethics, mentoring individuals who have

serious interest to specialize in the subject, and, most importantly, ensure

that institutions are sensitized to the need for establishing formal structures

for ethical conduct and making them work.

The National Bioethics Conference

With the evolvement of the sector, there was an emerging need for sharing ideas

and to build a platform for the different stakeholders to come together and

discuss ethical issues in health care field and also the need to promote

indegenised, original thinking and experimentation so as to develop an ethical

framework suitable for the specific contexts that we work in here in India. It

was in recognition of this role that IJME needed to play that the idea of

organizing National Bioethics Conferences (NBC) was evolved.

The 1st NBC on the theme Ethical Challenges in Health, Global Context, Indian

Realities, held at the YMCA International Centre, Mumbai on 25-27 November, 2005

was co-organised by 20 institutions. The second NBC, organized in 2007, was on

the theme of Moral and ethical imperatives of healthcare technologies:

scientific, legal and socio-economic perspectives on use and misuse at the

NIMHANS (National Institute for Mental Health and Neurosciences) Convention

Centre, Bangalore from December 6th to 8th, 2007. The participation grew, and

there was involvement of 38 organisations in the second NBC.

National Bioethics Conference- 2010

Theme: Governance of Health Care – ethics, equity and justice

Overview

In recent decades, Indian health sector has seen revolutionary changes. With

the wave of globalization that has hit India, world class technologies,

superspecialities and big corporate and private sector hospitals emerged in

India, but it somehow distanced itself from the poor and needy in the country.

It also paved the way for international collaborations in the field of research,

service delivery and health education. Although significant achievements have

been made, there are still gaping holes and discrepancies in the public health

care setup which caters to a significant proportion of population. Keeping these

facts in mind, the 3rd NBC on the theme ethics, equity and justice is being held

from Nov 18th- 20th, 2010 at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,

the premier medical institute in the country.

Project objectives: To bring together diverse perspectives on governance in

healthcare, towards building an equitable and just health system by providing a

platform for achieving a productive dialogue between practitioners,

administrators, policy-makers and activists to this end.

Specific objectives:

• To bring together key institutions within the healthcare sector to engage with

the issue of governance with a view to ensuring equity and justice for all.

• To enable emerging research in bioethics in India to be presented in a public

forum and encouraging these researches to be published in national and

international journals so that it reaches a wider audience.

• To create a forum for organizing skill-building and resource sharing in

bioethics among different organisations and to enable dialogue between key

stakeholders from India and abroad on a range of perspectives with a view to

enlighten healthcare practice, policy making and management from a bioethics

perspective.

http://nbc3.ijme.in/index.php/NBC2010/NBC2010