Kochi: Govt to deal quacks with iron hand, says minister

KOCHI: Once the Kerala Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Bill is passed, the department of health can monitor private healthcare institutions and ensure that they provide quality service, minister for health K K Shailaja said here on Tuesday.

Speaking after a sitting of the legislative assembly's subject committee for health and family welfare here, she said plans were afoot to act against fake doctors and quacks.

The sitting discussed the concerns and suggestions regarding the Bill.

"Now, there is no proper mechanism to regularize operations of private healthcare institutions. The Bill is aimed at regulating private hospitals, laboratories and scanning centres in the state," she said.

Suggestions received during the public meetings would be incorporated to the Bill, which would be presented in the coming budget session.

The committee received about 40 petitions from various medical and health organizations in the city.

Ayurveda practitioners and state medical laboratory owner's association said they were not given adequate representation in the Bill.

"It has come to our notice that the Ayurveda community is not mentioned in the Bill. There are fake physicians in Ayurveda and they should be punished. Certificates for Ayurveda practitioners should be issued by the ministry of AYUSH, under the Central Council of Indian Medicine," said Suliman Vaidyar of Ayurveda Medical Association.

The association requested the committee not to take away the rights of Ayurveda physicians to make medicines. Doctors and other healthcare officials in the government and private sector also raised concerns over the lack of transparency in the registration process.

To an allegation that several clinics and small hospitals would be eliminated once the Bill becomes an Act, the minister said that it was not because of the government's policy that such clinics, considered to be the backbone of the health sector in state, were vanishing or being shut down.