The Indian Express 14.08.2012
More closure notices to nursing homes , IMA to take up issue at August 19 meet
Hospital registration renewals have become a vexatious issue among the medical fraternity with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) sending out a fresh lot of closure notices to nearly 25 ‘unauthorised’ nursing homes.
Assistant health officer Kishore Pakhare of PMC said at least 107 nursing homes were unauthorised as per their records and closure notices were being issued in batches to doctors running them under the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act, 1949.
Dr Dilip Sarda, president-elect of the state unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA), told Newsline that he had already received representations from at least 16 doctors who got these closure notices in the past two weeks to take up the matter with the municipal authorities. A majority of these representations pertain to lack of completion certificate for the buildings housing these nursing homes and the state IMA unit is expected to take up the issue at its meeting on August 19.
IMA city president Dr Bharati Dhorepatil had already taken up the matter with Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Pathak, wherein the latter had promised to issue guidelines and agreed to make IMA the nodal agency to facilitate its members in obtaining requisite permissions and certifications from the PMC with regard to registration of new hospitals and renewal of old ones.
PMC acting chief medical officer Dr S T Pardeshi said hospitals not complying with the specifications would be sealed. “Since these nursing homes are unauthorised, we have also urged the doctors to take precautionary measures and ensure that there is no death.”
Additional city engineer Vivek Kharwadkar said a meeting was organised to thrash out the complicated issues and the PMC was not helping the doctors in getting the unauthorised nursing homes regularised though prior permissions should have been taken. “However we can only do so within the ambit of development control rules. Nursing homes are public utility places and we also have a mandate to ensure safety of persons while enforcing DC rules.”
Doctors have, however, demanded that there was a need not to generalise the issue of lack of building completion certificate with the other requirements. Dr Prashant Ghorpade — who has a nursing home at Kharadi — has been issued a notice as there is no adequate parking space in the building.
As per norms, a five-bed nursing home needs parking space for five four-wheelers, ten two-wheelers and 15 bicycles. “The building is an old one,” says Ghorpade, who has been pursuing the matter with civic officials.
Dr Pankaj Changedia, who has a nursing home at Ashoka Nagar at Kharadi, pointed out that the builder had not taken the completion certificate from the PMC. “Not only that my nursing home is among others but there are also shops in this commercial complex. We are coming daily to the PMC and submitting documents to get appropriate documents. A co-operative housing society located here has also given a court notice to the builder,” he says.
Sarda said the notices had been served under the old Act while several of its provisions have been modified by the Bombay Nursing Home Registration (Amendment) Act 2005, which allows nursing homes, hospitals and maternity homes to renew their registration with the municipal corporation every three years and not every year as is being done now.
