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.
