Private hospitals may soon be under MMC regulations

Proposal draft in final stages for keeping tab on corruption due to cut practices

The Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) is likely to propose an amendment in their MMC Act which seeks to bring private hospitals under its regulation so that the patients can complain directly to them instead of going to the court.

Currently, if a patient has any grievance against a corporate hospital, he has to approach the court as Maharashtra Medical Council and the state government have no control or jurisdiction over the private hospitals.

Dr Shivkumar Utture, President, MMC, said their main aim is to bring all the hospitals under the umbrella of MMC.

“We are in final stages of preparing the draft which will be forwarded soon to the government for approval,” he said.

As per the MMC Act, they can only take cognisance of complaints that are made against the doctors. But if there are any complaints against hospitals, council cannot take action against them for which they are making this amendment in the Act.

“It is also important to keep a check on corruption occurring due to cut practices in private hospitals. Because of this, the state government had tabled the ‘Cut Commission Practice Act’ in front of the legislative assembly resulting which the central government had also asked the states to implement the Clinical Establishment Act, which is still pending,” said Dr Utture.

Dr PM Bhujang, president of Hospital Association of Doctors, stated, patients from private and trust-run hospitals do complain to them which they forward to MMC. “There is no need of making new amendments in the Act as we look after the complaints of patients and MMC takes action on basis of that,” said Dr Bhujang.

Dr Parthiv Sanghvi, former Maharashtra State Secretary, Indian Medical Association (IMA) has welcomed this move of MMC stating that in the Act 1965, private and trustee hospitals were not included. Now the MMC wants to include them so that they can be regulated and patients can complain, this is a good step.

“We support this decision so that patients can be benefited and this will be a new platform to complain about cut practice, overcharging of treatment or if beds aren’t made available to them,” said Dr Sanghvi.