A College of Doctors may be set up in Moldova at the suggestion of MPs, who consider the doctors will be better protected and the quality of services will improve if such a body is created. The doctors say such an initiative is good, but membership of the College should not be mandatory, especially because the members must pay dues, Info-Prim Neo reports. The bill was discussed in a meeting of the Parliament’s commission on social protection, health and family. The commission’s head Vladimir Hotineanu said the College of Doctors should be a public, apolitical, professional organization of the medical personnel that would monitor how the doctors do their job, in accordance with the national legal norms and the obligations assumed within international treaties. Under the bill, the College will aim to ensure the professional independence of the doctors, to defend their dignity and promote their rights and interests. It will organize the examination of the petitions and complaints about deviations by doctors from the professional ethical norms, filed by private individuals and legal entities, and will impose disciplinary penalties on the members of the College and inform the competent bodies if need be. During the debates, the chief doctor of the Clinic of the State University of Medicine and Pharmaceutics “Nicolae Testemitanu” Ala Nimerenko said the article saying that “the doctors have the right to work in Moldova only after they join the College of Doctors” should be amended as it runs counter to the legislation, which provides that any person who meets the necessary conditions can become a doctor. The head of the Private Doctors Association Boris Untu said the bill is good, but it should not oblige the doctors to become members of the College as not all of them will be able to pay dues. The bill on the organization and functioning of the College of Doctors will be debated until the legislature passes it in two readings.