Pune Mirror | Updated: Apr 2, 2018, 02.30 AM IST.
While IMA has asked for leniency during licence renewal, the state health department is not keen to bypass the current guidelines.
The state public health department is reluctant to provide relief to hospitals that have demanded for renewal of their licences despite their nursing staff not being registered with the Maharashtra Nursing Council as is mandated by the Bombay Nursing Home Registration Act.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Health department had sought state government’s intervention after the city branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had asked that hospitals should be granted renewal.
As per current norms, PMC had told hospitals to get their nurses registered with the council, failing which they would not be granted renewal, the deadline for which was March 31. However, registration with the state nursing council is mandatory only for qualified nurses and not for the trained staff, the IMA claimed.
Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, deputy director of health services, said, “There are already guidelines issued by the health department stating that the staff needs to be qualified and registered with the council. The renewal of licences has to be given only to hospitals that have qualified nursing staff. How can we give directions to PMC go ahead and approve the renewal of hospitals without qualified staff. This goes against all manner of ethics. Nevertheless, we have now forwarded the issue to the state family welfare bureau.”
However, Dr Prakash Marathe, president of IMA’s Pune chapter, said, “The state government and the PMC health department are stressing that renewals need to be granted according to the guidelines. But most of the hospitals are small establishments and don’t have nursing staff who are registered with the Maharashtra Nursing Council. Practically it is not possible for small and medium-sized hospitals to do so. Thus, the team from IMA had met the PMC health officials and asked for leniency in the renewal process.”
Elaborating further, Marathe added, “The number of nurses in these hospitals is far less than what is required. Qualified nurses have to be given designations and salaries according to the degrees they bear and it is not possible for small hospitals to bear the expenses. It is unfair that these hospitals and their staff should be penalised. The government should definitely consider those nurses who have been working for a long time.”
Vaishali Jadhav, assistant medical officer of health at PMC said, “IMA’s office-bearers have met with us regarding the nurse registration issue. We have sought guidance from the state government on the matter and have written to the deputy director of health services, Pune Circle. We have not yet received a response about the renewals. Further action will depend on the response we get from the state authorities.”
