With the aim of streamlining medical establishments in the State, the Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday introduced a Bill in the Assembly that seeks to suitably amend the Tamil Nadu Private Clinical Establishment (Regulation) Act, 1997, to provide for the registration and regulation of all clinical establishments in the State, and to prescribe minimum standards for facilities and services to be provided by them.
The first among the duties and responsibilities of every clinical establishment, as defined by the Bill, is to “administer first aid and take other life-saving or stabilising emergency measures in all medico-legal or potentially medico-legal cases, such as road accidents, accidental or induced burns or poisoning or criminal assaults and the like, when the victims present themselves at the clinical establishment.”
The Bill, once enacted, will authorise the State government to prescribe minimum standards for facilities and services in respect of different categories of clinical establishments under all recognised systems of medicine.
Introduced in the House by Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar, the Bill also provides for the constitution of a State Level Advisory Committee to advise the government on the regulation of these establishments, District Committees for the registration of these units, besides providing for the levy of penalties in case of any contravention of the rules. Anyone operating a clinical establishment without obtaining due registration would be liable for punishment with a fine of ₹5,000 (which may extend to ₹50,000).
General hospitals, including dental hospitals, maternity hospitals, dispensaries, consulting rooms, clinics, polyclinics and nursing homes are to come under the ambit of ‘clinical establishments’. Any institution or centre, where a physically- or mentally-ill, injured or infirm person is admitted either as an in-patient or an out-patient for treatment with or without the aid of operative procedures, also comes under the purview of the Act.
While the Director of Medical and Rural Health Services would be the ex-officio chairperson of the State Level Advisory Committee, which would meet once a year, the District Committees would be chaired by the respective Deputy Directors of Medical and Rural Health Services and would meet once every six months.
The decision of the State government to amend the Act follows the recommendations made by a committee constituted in 2012, following the enactment of the Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, by the Centre, which also sent draft model State rules to all State governments.
Though the State government had earlier enacted the Tamil Nadu Private Clinical Establishment (Regulation) Act, 1997, to regulate and control private hospitals, nursing homes and other clinical establishments in the State, the provisions of the Act were not implemented due to non-framing of the rules.
