A redrafted bill, in the place of the already lapsed Clinical Establishments (registration and regulation) Bill 2007, to introduce mandatory registration of all healthcare establishments is likely to be tabled in the next Parliament session.
After almost a year, the Health Ministry is learnt to be drafting the new bill incorporating many of the recommendations by the Parliamentary committee and is expected to be ready with it soon. The original bill, which was introduced two years back and went to the scrutiny of the committee, has already been lapsed, sources said.
The new Healthcare Establishments (registration and regulation) Bill will have an expanded purview unlike in the previous bill which sought to cover only clinical establishments. The laboratories, diagnostic services, R&D facilities taking up clinical trials on patients and all systems of medicines will be included for compulsory registration in the new bill, it is learnt.
Sources said the finalization of the Format, for provisional registration of institutions, which has been pending for some time, was being done so that it can be introduced soon after the passage of the bill. The department has received many feedbacks from the stakeholders and experts on the proposed format.
The word clinical is being changed in the title of the bill as there is an impression that it covers only allopathic clinics and under the new bill, entire gamut of healthcare services will be included. It will also cover OPD services as even surgical interventions were done these days without patient’s stay in the hospital or nursing home, sources said.
However, it is not known whether the bill will have purview over the government hospitals as recommended by the Parliamentary panel. “The committee does not find any substance in exclusion of Government/public health institutions/ autonomous institutions from the purview of the Act as put forth before it through some representations,” the committee had said in its report.