Pune: Newly appointed health minister Prakash Abitkar has as part of his initial reforms announced that all private hospitals in the state, registered under the Nursing Act, will be inspected for compliance with norms. These include bio waste disposal, fire safety, and hospital registration regulations.
Public health department staff have been asked to prepare a list of all such registered hospitals and ensure they are given a month’s time to comply with the directives.
Failing to comply will attract strict penalties for hospitals, from suspension for a few days to even permanent revocation of the license.
However, public health department staffers — who are usually too short-staffed to even manage public healthcare institutions — say the additional task is now a burden that is emerging as a huge challenge. Senior officials said some staff from the district health administration might be moved to cities with a more private healthcare institutions to take part in this task. Despite this, they said the mammoth task seems daunting with limited time — and it may also hamper routine work at primary and secondary healthcare institutes.
State health department director Dr Nitin Ambadekar told TOI, “We will ensure that we are able to manage the inspection of hospitals with the staff we have. We will manage distribution of manpower in the state and move staffers as per the requirement to cities with more private hospitals. But we are sure that we will meet the target.”
Health minister Ambitkar said, “Prior to this, there was no check on private hospitals for compliance with the Nursing Act. Now, will get the inspections done with whatever manpower we have. I will ensure it is completed. The intention is not at all to punish or penalise any hospital, but just to ensure that hospitals comply with norms.”
Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) alone has to inspect over 800 hospitals within a month with just 15 ward medical officers (WMO) — this comes to around 53 hospitals per WMO in 30 days.
The WMOs are also responsible for ensuring issuance of birth and death certificates and executing various govt schemes. The civic body hopes to receive additional help from state govt.
PMC’s assistant health officer Dr Suryakant Devkar said, “We have enough staff available and if we need more help, we have been informed that we can seek it. We routinely inspect hospitals to ensure compliance under the Nursing Act every six months and will inspect the same parameters under this special drive as well. However, this time it will be completed within a fixed deadline.”
In Pune district, there are over 600 private hospitals and only 42 health officers, 13 taluka medical officers, and rural hospital superintendents to inspect them. Civil surgeon Dr Nagnath Yempalle said, “These 600 hospitals are not distributed uniformly, so distance between them is a crucial factor. But we are hopeful of completing inspections within the given deadline and submitting our report.”
A senior WMO in Pune said, “Due to decentralisation of work, WMOs are already under stress about health department duties. The special drive comes at a time when we have to meet annual targets before March. We are worried about how we will manage.”
