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PMC-IMA stand-off ends: Pune doctors relieved as PMC health dept begins renewing licences of small hospitals
Speaking to HT, Dr Vaishali Jadhav, PMC’s head of licence renewal and assistant medical officer, said that the process has been expedited and many small hospitals have got their licences renewed.
Tension has eased between the Pune municipal corporation’s (PMC) health department and the Indian medical association (IMA), Pune, after a number of pending licences of small hospitals were cleared by the PMC.
Speaking to HT, Dr Vaishali Jadhav, PMC’s head of licence renewal and assistant medical officer, said that the process has been expedited and many small hospitals have got their licences renewed.
“We are hoping that the process will soon be completed,” she said.
Dr Sanjay Patil, IMA hospital board’s chairman, said that a survey of hospitals revealed that many licences had been renewed and “just a handful of hospitals” are now awaiting their licences.
Dr Jadhav confirmed that she had received a letter from the IMA on the issue, but was not able to respond as the PMC wanted the state government authorities to respond to the letter.
Over the last six months, PMC and IMA were at loggerheads after the PMC’s health department refused to renew medical licences of small hospitals citing incomplete documentation.
According to the IMA, the licence renewal of nearly 80% of the 350 small hospitals had been kept pending on grounds that they did not employ registered nurses.
On August 8, Dr Padma Iyer, IMA Pune president, and honorary secretaries Dr Rajkumar Shah and Dr Meenakshi Deshpande wrote a hard-hitting letter to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and others, drawing attention to a report in HT on August 7 ‘Medical licence renewal row: Jobs for nurses emerges as key issue in PMC’s standoff with hospitals’.
The IMA stressed that ‘retrospective implementation of any rules is bad in law’.
The letter categorically stated that the Bombay Nursing Home Act, under which all hospitals are registered with PMC, “does not enforce employment of qualified nurses registered with Maharashtra Nursing Council”. Dr Jadhav had defended her action by stating that she was following the state government directives
The Maharashtra government’s health department had also reacted to this controversy with Dr Archana Patil, additional director health services and head of family welfare bureau, Maharashtra, telling HT that it was “compulsory for a hospital to submit all the documents which are being asked for and nurses’ registration certificate from the Maharashtra Nursing Council is a must”.
She had said hospitals need to employ only registered and qualified nurses in their set-up.
