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Health Department Cracks Down On Private Hospitals, Infrastructure Checking While Renew Licence

By pardeep3dec, Section Health
Posted on Sat Oct 20, 2007 at 02:45:36 AM EST

With several complaints of irregularities coming up against the private nursing homes and hospitals in the city, the state health department has decided to check whether the infrastructure of the private healthcare establishments are in order while renewing the licences.

A senior health department official said: "We have received several complaints against the private healthcare establishments over the past few years.
We had to take some steps to stop harassment of patients. Primarily, we have to ensure that patients get properly treatmed in these hospitals and nursing homes. So, we would send health department teams to check whether all needed infrastructure are in order before renewing the licences."

According to plans, the health department will form a few teams which will visit the nursing homes and hospitals when these establishments apply for renewal of their licenses. The licenses will be renewed only after getting a satisfactory report from the teams.

Earlier, the health department used to believe the affidavit submitted by a nursing home or a hospital in the court. These establishments used to seek renewal of licenses by submitting the affidavit copy to the health department. And based on the affidavit, the department used to renew the licenses. Health department cracks down on private hospitals.

But later, it was found that these establishments often lacked proper infrastructure though they had claimed in their affidavits. Recently, the director of health services, Dr Sanchita Baksi, had visited a few nursing homes and found these were lacking proper infrastructure.

Immediately after that she had formed a 12-member committee to enquire whether all the nursing homes and private hospitals have proper infrastructure. The committee has started its work and the first report of the committee is expected by December this year.

But before that the department has decided to tighten the screw of the errant private healthcare establishments by taking note of the actual condition of these by sending teams before the licenses are renewed.

When contacted, Dr Swapan Chakraborty, deputy director (administration), state health department, said: "We have to do it because several complaints are coming up in this regard over the past few years. All such establishments will have to have proper infrastructure and it would now be verified by the teams of the department itself."

Source: The Statesman, 20th Oct, 2007

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