Licence stick for private heal hubs

Ranchi: The state health department has directed all private hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and diagnostic centres to get their licences failing which stringent action will be taken under provisions of the Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010.

The order, signed by health secretary Nidhi Khare and published in vernacular dailies on Wednesday, says unregistered heal hubs and diagnostic centres will be slapped with a fine up to Rs 50,000 for first time offence. If they still don't honour formalities, they will have to cough up Rs 2 lakh for repeat offence. A fine up to Rs 5 lakh may be imposed if registration rules are not followed a third time.

A National Health Mission (Jharkhand) official said the primary purpose of registration was to connect all private medical centres with the e-hospital scheme for data sharing on birth and death of children. "All government hospitals and registered private heal hubs share data related to children with the NHM, but unregistered ones do not. This creates hurdles in planning proper healthcare schemes for mother and child," he said.

Mission director K.N. Jha said so far, only 4,528 private hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and diagnostic centres in the state were registered. "Recently, in Chatra, many unregistered heal hubs were identified and sealed. We realised there are many others elsewhere too," he said.

Unconfirmed sources said there were at least 4,000 more unregistered hospitals and nursing homes across the state.

A health department official said after registration, it would be easier for the government to keep tabs on private hospitals and nursing homes. "Otherwise it is difficult to keep tabs on private hospitals and we often receive reports about unsafe delivery, wrong injection or medicine and similar irregularities," he added.

Day care centres

State health secretary Nidhi Khare on Wednesday said five integrated day care centres for patients of haemophilia, sickle cell anaemia and thalassemia would be set up in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Deoghar, Hazaribagh and Daltonganj. She was addressing a state-level workshop on haemophilia at the Institute of Public Health in Namkum.