M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, July 19: Palamu Civil Surgeon Palamu Dr Anil Kumar has issued a public notice under orders of the state health department asking the private hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, Ayush clinics, pathology labs, x-ray centres, ultrasound centres, dental x-ray centres, CT scan centres, MRI centres etc to get registration under the Clinical Establishment Act (CEA) 2020 latest by July 31.
Rampant openings of the private hospital or nursing home, sometimes running surreptitiously in the basement or the garage of any house with deep green heavy curtains around it have been recorded in Palamu in recent times.
Palamu has around 330 plus private hospitals or other allied private health hubs.
Sources said in the post-Coronavirus phase, there is more of a rush to open a private hospital or maternity wards etc than an English medium school.
Private hospitals sprout more across the National Highway than the other roads. It is also true in Palamu as NH 75 and 98 have more private hospitals and nursing homes.
A plethora of claims of guaranteed treatment sometimes from paralytic stroke to female sterility are made in these health hubs and patients are fleeced here.
Dr Anil Kumar said that the registration under CEA 2020 applies to fresh applicants’ registration or for the renewal of registration of the old ones too.
“We expect health entrepreneurs to abide by the directive of the state government. Online application is to be filled first for the registration and it has to be done latest by July 31 midnight,” the CS said.
Any private health hub including a private diagnostic centre functioning without applying for the registration within the stipulated period and after July 31 will be deemed as functioning in violation of the Clinical Establishments Act.
Dr Anil Kumar said there is a three-stage penalty. Rs 50,000 for the first violation of the Clinical Establishments Act, Rs 2 lakh for the second term violation and for the third violation it is Rs 5 lakh.
The CS has appealed to all the prospective applicants to file an online application for registration on and before July 31.
Sources said if a patient suffers from diarrhea then these one-room or two-room private hospitals make fast bucks by offering saline transfusion at Rs 200 per bottle.
Similarly, private hospitals earn good money in hydrocele operations also. Again one finds names of the government doctors at many of these private hospitals together whereas a doctor has to be under his command only two private hospitals and that too within a range of 20 kilometres.
Here in Palamu, there are instances where a doctor is shown attached to a private hospital in Daltonganj while the name of the same doctor is flaunted at the private hospital located 70 km away from Daltonganj also.
