The Medical health department is fully geared up to implement the provisions of the Clinical Establishment Act if the State Government decides to give its approval for the bill.
The Director General of Medical Health Dr GS Joshi made this assertion while interacting with The Pioneer. He accepted that the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has reservations on certain provisions of the Act which is causing delay in its implementation in the State. Joshi said that IMA has conveyed that they would suggest the amendments to the State Government in the aforesaid Act on August 25. He believed that the act would be beneficial to both the general public and the doctors.
The issue of implementation of the Clinical Establishment Act in the state is pending for more than two years. The clout of private hospitals and private practitioners who are opposing the act is believed to be behind the delay in the implementation of the act in the state.
It is worth mentioning here that the act already exists in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Sikkim, and all Union Territories.
The state government is under immense pressure from the central government which has threatened to stop its huge financial assistance on health if the state government fails to implement the act before October this year.
The act seeks to regulate all clinical establishments with a view to prescribing the minimum standards of facilities and services provided by them. Under the act, the clinical establishments should keep a record of the all the patients and disclose and display the types of services they offer. These establishments would be bound to disclose the number and qualification of the staff they are employing.