Punjab Government may enact clinical establishment Act

Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 9

The Covid-19 outbreak may end Punjab’s wait to get the Clinical Establishment Act as the government is planning to bring an ordinance to end “fleecing” by private doctors. The Act, whose draft is ready, has been hanging fire for the past eight years.

With an aim to regulate the functioning of private hospitals in the country, the Union Government had enacted the Clinical Establishment Act 2010, which was adopted by several states. However, instead of adopting the same Act, the then Punjab Government had decided to draft its own and in 2012, constituted a Clinical Establishment Act Drafting Committee.

But thanks to the powerful lobby of the private practitioners, the draft was never accepted.

After a series of meetings, the committee headed by Dr Rajesh Kumar, former head, School of Public Health, PGIMER, Chandigarh, had submitted the draft of the Bill to the government in 2013. The draft had important provisions like every private or government hospital has to display the services it offers and mention the fee it charges. Besides, it was also proposed to make it mandatory for all private hospitals to get registered.

The draft was not cleared by the Cabinet. The members of the committee had publicly said that the Act was being scuttled by the lobby of big corporate hospitals.

After the formation of the Congress government in 2017, the then Health Minister Brahm Mohindra had also announced to implement the Act.

In November last year, the state once again posted draft of the Bill on its website and asked for feedback. But once again, the powerful body of private doctors was successful in scuttling the move.

Soon after that, Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu assured an IMA delegation that their genuine demands would be considered before taking any decision. But the Act could never see light of the day.

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