Licences of 69 nursing homes in Bhopal cancelled

BHOPAL: The district administration on Monday cancelled the licenses of 69 private nursing homes in the city for violating norms under the medical termination of pregnancy (MPT) Act. Notices were served to the erring private nursing homes by the Chief medical and health officer (CMHO) Dr Pankaj Shukla. Only 35 of the 104 private nursing homes have filed their mandatory monthly report for April.
“Today’s termination order is the first step against those private nursing homes, which are not following the norms. Once the district licensing authority (DLC) looks into the matter further action would be taken,” said the CMHO, who had given set a deadline of May 5 for private nursing homes to comply.
The nursing homes were found breaching norms of MTP Act, 1971 after Times of India article ‘Abortions : Nine out of 10 Bhopal nursing homes ignore MTP Act stipulations’ in December last year. Fearing cases of female foeticide, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) took cognizance of the article and sought a status report, within 30 days, from the district collector on March 19. The period was later extended by 20 days.
Reacting to the move by the CMHO, advisor to Madhya Pradesh nursing homes association, Dr Anoop Hajela told TOI, “We have issued circulars instructing all registered private hospital to submit the report of the last one year at the earliest to the CMHO. If some private nursing homes continue to violate the MTP Act, the association will look into the matter.
Speaking in defence of the nursing homes Dr Hajela said, “The private nursing homes have been filing the reports through the health management information system (HMIS).”
Reacting to the comment, Dr Shukla said, “Private nursing homes cannot get away simply by reporting abortions along with the data incorporated into the HMIS.”
Private nursing homes have to follow the procedure by law and file detailed reports to the pre-natal diagnostic test (PNT) nodal officer, he added.
“The form submitted should inform about duration of pregnancy, religion of women, termination with acceptance of contraception and reasons for termination,” said pre-natal diagnostic test (PNT) nodal officer Dr Padmakar Tripathi.
According to pre-natal diagnostic test (PNT) nodal officer, as many as 2,367 abortions of up to 12 weeks of pregnancy were performed in private nursing homes in the state capital from April 2011 to March 2012. Interestingly, this year so far only three nursing homes filed the report in prescribed performa in January, six in February and 20 in March.
There are 104 nursing homes in Bhopal registered under the MTP Act who have to report to the pre-natal diagnostic test (PNT) nodal officer on a monthly basis on the cases done by them.