Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday rapped the state government for not taking action against illegal nursing homes. The court said that if anyone wanted to run a small shop, they required a licence from the authorities, but thousands of illegal nursing homes were running sans licence in the state.
A division bench of Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Girish Kulkarni was hearing a petition filed by Pune resident, Atul Bhosale, raising the issue of the sorry condition of hospitals and nursing homes in the state and the pathetic state of medical care.
At last hearing, the court had questioned why the government was reluctant to implement the provisions of the central act, and why the state was succumbing to pressure from the medical community. The court had further directed the advocate general to appear at the next hearing.
Accordingly, on Friday, advocate general Kumbhakoni informed the court that so far, action had been taken against 3,000 illegal nursing homes. He also informed that they had arrested doctors from various places and very soon, the state would introduce stringent laws on the basis of the centre’s Clinical Establishments Act to regulate private nursing homes and hospitals in the state.
He told the court that the draft plan for such a law was already in place and the state was in the process of finalising some amendments to it. A clutch of
doctors and other members of the medical community had raised objections and made suggestions and a committee had been formed to consider these and amend the draft accordingly.
The court has given three weeks’ time to file a reply.
