‘Small nursing homes will vanish under Act’

The Medicos Legal ActionGroup has express discontent about the inter-ministerial committee decision onnot exempting small-sized nursing homes across the country from the ClinicalEstablishment Act (CEA). Thousands of small and medium healthcareestablishments (SMHCE) across India will vanish due to the Act in the comingyears due to the stringent rules, experts have claimed.

“All small-sized nursing homes dotting the country will get closed down in coming years under CEA. Small and medium healthcare establishments, irrespective of whether they are manned by a single doctor or multiple doctors and irrespective of being in rural or urban areas, nursing homes with up to 20 beds should be given relaxation in minimum standards as is given to small and medium scale industries under a separate Act,” said Dr Neeraj Nagpal, convenor, Medicos Legal Action Group, managing director MLAG Indemnity.

SMHCE mainly represents nursing homes with less than 20 beds. In a recent meeting held on December 8, the committee exempted only ‘single doctor establishments’ (SDE).

As per World Health Organisation (WHO), such nursing homes provide 80 per cent of the medical services in India. Focusing on this, the group said that implementation of the Act will shift all these common surgeries to corporate hospitals, which will not only increase per capital expenditure of people but also their limit the already limited beds in hospitals.

“During emergencies, it is impossible to take patients only to tertiary hospitals. Such surgeries are cause a loss to corporate hospitals so it imperative for the corporate world to close down these upstarts using the CEA. The corporate hospitals wish for OPD clinics to function and refer all procedures and surgeries to them,” said Dr Sudhir Naik, president Association of Medical Consultancy (AMC), Mumbai.

However, Mumbai follows its own Bombay Nursing Home Act, which doesn’t recommend such strict rules for small nursing homes. “If the centralised Act is practiced in Mumbai, it will be most affected as almost 50 per cent of the patients are dependent on these nursing home,” added Dr Naik.

But to check irregularities and growing complaints of patients against these nursing homes, the Central government wants to implement this Act in all hospitals across the country irrespective of their size.

Explaining why the inter-ministerial committee had not exempted small-sized nursing homes from the Clinical Establishment Act, Dr Jayesh Lele,

president, Indian Medical Association, Maharashtra, “There are many complaints about over charging, bad behaviour and irresponsibility but it doesn’t get addressed properly as they lack proper resident medical officers. But it is unfair just to stop such cases; the government will perish SMHCE.”

However, he added that this did not justify the move. “But that doesn’t mean that the government will impose unnecessary rules that will just add burden to the functioning of SMHCE,” he said.