VMC begins registration of nursing homes, hospitals

The Times Of India, Vadodara TNN | Apr 24, 2016, 07.05 AM IST

Vadodara: The Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has started registering healthcare services under the Bombay Nursing Homes Registration Act (BNHRA) and other provisions.

The registration will ensure that the civic body has the entire picture of the number of nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities like clinics and laboratories along with the number of beds available at establishments that admit indoor patients.

It is for the first time that such registrations will be done for the facilities that were so far registered only under the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act. The VMC was earlier planning to ensure that all medical facilities that admit patients as indoor patients should get themselves registered with the civic body.

A resolution in this regard was also passed by the standing committee in March 2013 and then the general board of the VMC.

After registering, the facilities can also be asked to comply with the reporting or submission of data regarding various diseases. These could include epidemics, outbreaks or even diseases like dengue, malaria, tuberculosis, chikungunya, waterborne diseases and others that the civic body monitors on a regular basis.
For the hospitals the registration itself would be a major help as for several formalities including medical insurance the number is asked by various organisations. In absence of this, the hospitals have to convince such organisations to consider their shops and establishment registration number.
 So far only two other municipal corporations – Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar – have started such registrations, a VMC official said. He said that those facilities that were not registered under BNHRA would be registered under the Birth and Death Registration Act, Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporations Act and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act.

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