Safety and health standards for pvt nursing homes, across state

Mumbai: In a welcome move, the state government has decided to regulate the working of private nursing homes across Maharashtra and has proposed to amend the Bombay Nursing Homes Registration Act, 1949. The state will introduce a bill on the issue in the forthcoming winter assembly.
Though nursing homes in certain cities were registered by the local civic bodies, there were no uniform guidelines to regulate their functioning.
The new amendment aims to make it mandatory for all nursing homes to re g i s t e r themselves with the health department of municipal bodies. It will also enable the government to frame guidelines and rules to regulate the nursing homes. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who announced the decision after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, said it has “so far been quite easy to start a nursing home and the government wanted to change that in order to meet certain safety and health standards’’.
Now, the government has proposed that people who run the nursing homes should have proper medical qualifications (MBBS degree). Health activists have pointed out that there was no such regulation at present, which meant even non-medical professionals could run a nursing home. They added that regulations had been in place since 1949 but these lack teeth and were never implemented. Sources said the government had been considering an amendment to this act about three years ago.