doctors and clinical establishments act

Monisha Unni was a beautiful and talented actress in kerala . She did many great movies but her career was cut short by a tragic "accident " in kerala . Her vehicle hit an unmarked divider on our infamous roads and she died instantly. Decade has passed since her death and standards of kerala roads are pathetic still and so many people still lose their life in our roads and even the neighbouring tamil nadu has much better roads .This is just to illustrate that kerala is unique in having lots of rules (like putting reflector on divider ) but rules are mainly to harass people and incessant debate but not of any practical public good

The state of our government medical colleges are at par with other government medical colleges in india . They do a good job considering the massive amounts of patients they cater to but still due to "poor infrastructure " and a host of other reasons people still are on the floor often , some get cross infections etc . The private sector with all their alleged business tactics which the public feel they do , give very good treatment often but still people feel they should be punished because they fleece them . Investing crores of medical equipment they are cruel to pass on that to the patients instead of doing charity work . I have blogged earlier on people spending thousands on sarees while cribbing and badmouthing private hospitals for billing them .

Its in this scenario that the government is introducing clinical establishments act . Its great to know that the government is taking steps to ensure that healthcare is delivered to standards . That is not only important for the votebank but a fundamental responsibility . But in a corrupt nation like ours how far should we aim for standards . And who should oversee the standards . ? Kerala is world renowned for healthcare standards compared to rest of india .. there is even a so called kerala model . Of course that model doesnt include the patients in the floor of "government " hospitals .

The rules in the act is extensive and many of the clauses are impractical when read by any healthcare personnel . It primarily targets smaller practitioners who have smaller establishments which do a decent job of patient care with decent levels of cleanliness , decent level of cost and decent level of patient comfort . As both a doctor as well as a patient (i too get occasional small illnesses being a human being ) i know most of the clinics adhere to reasonable standards . Of course they may not be the world class standards of a Mayo clinic . And spending a paltry 2-3 dollars for a drs consultation an average intelligent patient should not expect Mayo levels of standards but still they get excellent individualised care at these clinics .

An extensive discussion of this and talking about the private doctors who are forced to remain in a thankless profession is beyond this blogs scope (i have and will blog on this later ) . But for the time being its high time that the people, not the doctors ,realise that many of the overzealous management of the profession by non professionals will ultimately harm them . % years down the line you will consult the same doctor in a big corporate hospital and you may even have to take a personal loan and cry loudly at the bill . And unfortunately that same doctor will be helpless to help you cos then he would be just an employee ...