State to make treatment of trauma patients mandatory

CHENNAI: Hospitals will no longer be able to turn away victims of accidents and assaults or any other medico-legal cases, as the state government is planning to make it mandatory for all clinical establishments to administer first aid and take other life-saving measures to stabilise patients.
A bill to amend the Tamil Nadu Private Clinical Establishments (Regulation) Act, 1997 that was tabled by health minister Dr C Vijayabaskar in the state assembly on Tuesday, lists this as one of the five duties and responsibilities of clinical establishments — hospitals, nursing homes, dispensaries, consulting rooms, clinics or polyclinics.
Through the 1997 Act remains in force, it was never implemented as the private sector vehemently opposed it.
Work on amending the piece of legislation was expedited in 2016 after the Madras high court raised queries on why the government had not implement the Act when it was hearing the case of a medical student who died following a botched-up hair transplant procedure in a salon. In May 2015, P Santhosh kumar died after he underwent a hair transplant at the Advanced Robotic Hair Transplant Centre in Nungambakkam. Neither the salon nor the doctors who performed the transplant had permission to do the procedure. The Act would have ensured a safe environment for procedures like hair transplant, the court said.
Under the proposed legislation, clinical establishments should be registered with the government and should implement national and state programmes and furnish periodic reports, maintain records as prescribed for the system of medicine and carry out action to prevent spread of communicable diseases. Penalties for violation shall not be less than Rs 5,000, but which may extend to Rs 50,000, it said.
The government has created an advisory committee which will hold office for three years. It will advise the government on matters of regulation of clinical establishments and perform other functions assigned by the government, the bill said. Names of the clinical establishments will be published annually in the gazette.
There will also be a district committee. This body will ensure that no clinical establishment functions without registration. All existing establishments will have to register within the state government within nine months from the date of notification, and new establishments should register within six months from the date of establishment. If the establishment is not registered for a year, it shall cease to carry on business, it said.
IMA state president welcomed the amendment in the assembly. “It will enable the government to eradicate quackery as every hospital has to get registered with their due council registration. We are also happy a representative of the IMA will be there in the state and district level committees to express our problems and demands,” he said adding some sections of the piece of legislation, such as the clause on stabilisation, need more clarity.
“We hope the rules that will be framed after this will have more clarity,” he said