More than 6,000 private nursing homes and hospitals are operating illegally in Maharashtra as the state government is yet to frame a law to curb the malpractice. The matter has come to light after the Bombay High Court recently pulled up the state government for not cracking the whip on such establishments.

Maharashtra Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhkoni informed the court on June 8, 2018, that the premises of 3,000 illegal nursing homes and hospitals have been sealed. “Staff at these facilities, including doctors, were arrested and remanded to judicial custody,” he told the court.

Many of these nursing homes had not been registered or their registration had been cancelled so they were in violation of the Maharashtra Nursing Homes Registration Act. Among the reasons for these clinics/nursing homes not having registered themselves were changes in the biomedical waste regulations made in 2016 and the fire safety norms in 2012-13.

The case was being heard by Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Girish Kulkarni after a PIL filed by a resident of Pune, alleged that many nursing homes and hospitals in the state were run by private individuals or associations in violation of rules and without valid licenses. According to the PIL, more than 6,000 such nursing homes and hospitals were operating in the state.

The bench also said that action against 3,000 illegal nursing homes means that 3,000 were still operating. It questioned AG Kumbhkoni on what action had been taken against the other illegal nursing homes mentioned in the PIL. The AG informed the bench that the Maharashtra government has drafted a law along the lines of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act to regulate nursing homes and hospitals.

Kumbhakoni said that the new law was being reviewed by a committee and would be tabled before the state Assembly soon. The bench remarked, “Seven other states have already adopted the central law, why is Maharashtra not doing it? Is there pressure from the medical community?”

What doctors say

Doctors say that many times it is the associates of doctors and unqualified nurses who get training under a doctor and then open their own clinics, especially in remote areas. “It would be unfair to blame this on doctors. What can we do? Sometimes, associates working with doctors in clinics misuse their experience. These could be OT technicians, unqualified nurses, or others doing odd jobs who go back to their villages and open clinics," says a gynaecologist from New Mumbai.

Sinha added that what was more alarming was the trend of attaching names of top doctors to their clinics to lend them credibility. “Many such clinics use names of doctors randomly from the Internet to trick people into thinking that top doctors visit their clinic,” she said.

The state government will have to act immediately because the longer they take to exercise this law and shut down operations in these illegal nursing homes, the more havoc these establishments would cause to patients’ lives and the reputation of the medical community.

This story was contributed by Sonali Desai, a freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.