State lacks teeth to regulate pvt hospitals

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 7

Some glaring anomalies have come to the fore in the aftermath of the botched cataract surgeries in Gurdaspur.

While the Punjab Government has a provision to register a qualified doctor for issuance of licence to do practice, there is no such registration for private medical facilities, including hospitals, maternity homes and clinics.

Had there been any such check on the hospital at Ghuman (Gurdaspur) where the surgeries were performed, the victims may not have suffered blindness. It occurred allegedly due to poor sterilisation of equipment and ill-equipped operation theatre.

Also, Punjab lacks a provision for registration of para-medical and other support staff, including operation theatre assistants, ECG technicians, laboratory technicians, radiographers, etc. There is no count of the staff working in these categories and how qualified they are. There also have been complaints that some non-allopathic doctors have been handling patients in allopathic hospitals.

Punjab is yet to implement the Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act 2010. Even states like Bihar, considered not too high on the development graph, have this Act in place.

The Act has a provision to set up bodies to inspect and verify the standards being maintained by private facilities. In case of any deficiency, the council has the authority to impose a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh. The council can also fix the minimum experience required for the staff to handle critical cases and the period for renewal of the clinical establishment.

“We have asked the state government to pass the Act at the earliest. That will empower the government to maintain the prescribed standards in a private as well as public hospital,” said Dr GS Grewal, president of Punjab Medical Council, a body mandated to register and issue licences for medical practice to qualified doctors.

As an immediate measure, the Punjab Medical Council has decided to issue a directive to all doctors with regard to treatment and maintenance of operation theatres for surgeries, said Dr Grewal. He said related courses, including those of laboratory technician and radiography, should be conducted under the supervision of Baba Farid University for Medical and Research, Faridkot.

Dr Grewal also said their council would issue notices to the doctors who conducted surgeries at Ghuman. He said appropriate action would be taken in case of unsatisfactory reply.