After all the brouhaha over the State government’s plans to regulate the healthcare system through amendments to the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Act, 2007, little is likely to finally change despite the recommendations of the joint select committee.
- Grievance redressal committees to be headed by additional deputy commissioners or special deputy commissioners instead of jurisdictional zilla panchayat chief executive officers
- No legal practitioner can appear in proceedings before the grievance redressal committee
- Cost of health service and treatment procedures will be uniform throughout the State
- Hospital charges will be fixed based on its location and infrastructure
- Time frame for accepting or rejecting an application by the registration authority for KPME registrations has been increased from 30 days to 90 days
The committee was set up after private doctors and associations of medical establishments and nursing homes protested over the stringent rules under the amended KPME Bill, 2017 (which was tabled in the legislature in June). The committee submitted its final report to Legislative Assembly Speaker K.B. Koliwad last week.
According to a draft of the rephrased Bill, consequential to the committee’s recommendations, no major changes as demanded by the protesting private doctors and associations of private medical establishments and nursing homes are likely to go into the final Bill.
Terming the KPME (Amended) Bill, 2017 as “draconian”, private doctors and their associations had demanded that the government drop the jail term and penalty for erring doctors. Also there is no need to set up district and metropolitan grievance redressal committees when bodies such as the Karnataka Medical Council (KMC), Medical Council of India (MCI), Consumer Court, Civil Court, and the Lokayukta are already discharging the same function, they contended.
Moreover, these doctors also wanted government hospitals to come under the purview of the Bill as recommended by the Vikramjit Sen committee set up in July 2016 to draft amendments to the KPME Act, 2007.
These issues were also agreed upon by the joint select committee and it had recommended on the same lines in its report. However, the government is not likely to consider these recommendations, as the redrafted copy is silent on these issues.
While the KPME (Amended) Bill, 2017 had said the grievance redressal committees would be headed by the jurisdictional zilla panchayat chief executive officers, the redrafted copy says that these committees will be headed by additional deputy commissioners or special deputy commissioners. The redrafted copy says that no legal practitioner shall be permitted to appear in proceedings before the grievance redressal committee.
While the amended Bill said an expert committee can recommend fixation of cost of each health service and treatment procedures for different class of private medical establishments, the redrafted copy says the rates shall be uniform throughout the State. However, hospital charges shall be fixed based on the place where it is located and infrastructure provided.
The time frame for accepting or rejecting an application by the registration authority for KPME registrations has been increased from 30 days to 90 days.
The redrafted Bill is all set to be tabled in the winter session of the legislature that is scheduled to begin from November 13.
IMA members to meet Chief Minister
Reiterating that the amended KPME Bill in its current form is not acceptable, members of the State unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA) have planned to meet the Chief Minister soon and demand that the Vikramjit Sen committee’s report be implemented in toto. All the 177 IMA branches in the State are unanimous in this demand, said H.N. Ravindra, IMA president-elect.
“During our recent working committee meeting (chaired by IMA president Rajshekar Bellary), we decided to submit a memorandum to the Chief Minister seeking complete re-drafting of the Bill. If our demand is not met, it will become inevitable for us to launch an indefinite closure of all private hospitals in the State,” said Dr. Ravindra, who will assume charge on October 28.
