Maharashtra govt plans ordinance on Clinical Establishment Bill

Mumbai: Maharashtra government is planning to promulgate an ordinance to implement the draft Clinical Establishment Bill to make it mandatory for such establishments in the state to register themselves with a special authority to be created under the legislation.

The bill, which has been pending since 2011 due to opposition from the Indian Medical Association, envisages regularising the standards of health care and establish certain basic norms. In view of the opposition, the public health department had set up a committee comprising doctors and NGOs to address issues coming in way of the implementation of the legislation. Sources in the Public Health Department said the report has been received and some changes have also been made in the draft Bill. After approval of the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, the ordinance will be promulgated, sources added. The Centre had enacted the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act in 2010. Sources said the government had no count on the number of clinical establishments existing at present. "Registering them (clinical entities) will help the government to keep a check on their functioning and also have a list of practising doctors, nursing homes, pathology centres. The information will be shared with the Centre. The details would be required for formulating health related policies and programmes at a later stage," sources added. Under the proposed legislation, clinical establishments have to register themselves with either the State Council or the District Registering Authority to be set up for the purpose. Clinical entity is defined as a hospital, maternity home, nursing home, dispensary, clinic, pathology lab, diagnostic centre--owned, controlled or managed by the government, public or private. The scope of the draft Bill does not include clinical entities owned, controlled or managed by the Armed Forces and constituted under the Army Act 1950, the Air Force Act 1950 and the Navy Act 1957. The state council has to coordinate with the National Council under the proposed Act. The authority to be set up for each district for registration of clinical establishments will be called District Registering Authority which will be authorised to grant, renew, suspend or cancel registration of any clinical establishments, enforce compliance of the provisions and rules of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act 2010.