Minister: Coming up with Act for quality healthcare

Tribune News Service

Patiala, January 6

The first draft for the Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act is ready and will be adopted soon, said Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra, during the annual conference here at the Government Medical College.

Mohindra requested cooperation from doctors of the Indian Medical Council and the Punjab Medical Council to implement the Act.

Mohindra said, “For the last two years, I have been under pressure to come out with the said legislature. I want full cooperation from the doctors’ fraternity since they are 80 per cent stakeholders in the Act. The Act will certainly come out, come what may.”

He said the “patient-friendly” Clinical Establishment Act” would make all private clinical practitioners register themselves and maintain minimum standards of medical facilities. The Act will ensure quality healthcare and help in fixing the accountability of doctors, he said.

The Act, the minister said, would ensure that clinical establishments charge rates of procedures and services as prescribed by the government.

The minister said, “There is a continuous mushrooming of private nursing homes, clinics and quacks in the state. A mere Class X-pass person is assisting doctors in clinics. Therefore, to put a check on the malpractices and negligence, we need to implement the Act.”

However, the Health Minister received strong reservations from doctors at the conference. Senior doctors said the Act would discourage doctors from using modern scientific medicines and illegalities would continue. Doctors said the government had already failed to implement the existing laws to regulate quackery.

The minister assured doctors that it would be a very doctor-friendly Act and would benefit poor people.

The patient-friendly Clinical Establishment Act will require all private clinical practitioners to register themselves and maintain minimum standards of medical facilities. It will ensure quality healthcare and fix accountability of doctors —Brahm Mohindra, Health & Family Welfare Minister