Karnataka - Bangalore   

Treatment charges likely to be regulated in private clinics

BANGALORE: The State Government is planning to bring about a uniform fee structure for the treatment of specific diseases in private nursing homes in the State in a bid to prevent them from collecting exorbitant amount from patients.

Disclosing this during the Question Hour in the Legislative Council here on Monday, Health Minister B. Sriramulu said the thinking in the Government was to ensure that a particular treatment for a particular disease is charged uniformly in all nursing homes in the State. He pointed out that such a disease-specific uniform fee structure would require the support of legislation.

He said the State had received applications from 3,672 private nursing homes in Bangalore Urban district for registration under the Karnataka Private Medical Establishment Act 2007, the rules for which were framed in November 2009.

Under this Act, it was mandatory for all private hospitals to register with the Government and adhere to standards of service. There was a provision for imposing a penalty of Rs. 10,000, or imprisonment for three months or cancelling the licence of these medical establishments if they failed to adhere to the standards of practice, the Minister pointed out.

Replying to queries, Mr. Sriramulu expressed concern that it had become difficult for the Government to get doctors for its service. There were no takers for several walk-in interviews conducted by the Government to recruit doctors at various places as they [doctors] preferred private service, he pointed out.

Minister for Medical Education Ramachandra Gowda endorsed this and pointed out that there were 758 vacancies of teaching posts in the 10 government medical colleges in the State. The Government had increased the seats in the post-graduation courses in a bid to ensure that there will be availability of doctors with post-graduation degrees for its medical colleges.

MBBS exam

He also said that the Government would conduct an inquiry into the alleged bungling in the examinations of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in which the results of two students, who had failed in their final year MBBS examinations, had been shown as successful. The students had got admission to a post-graduate course on the basis of results announced on the Internet.

The Minister pointed out that an inquiry conducted by the university had shown that there was a bungling. The Government wanted to know how it was done and if it was deliberate, he said. In the wake of such an incident and the subsequent inquiry, which had pointed out the flaws in the security of the digital system of the university, steps would be taken to increase the digital security, he said.

Meanwhile, the university had filed a case against the two students, both with the cyber police station and a regular police station.

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