maharashtra nursing home act
leena Bagadia
(Querist) 15 February 2011
This query is : Open
My query is: why nursing homes are considered in the category of industry and charged electricity, water etc. at those rates?
Government considers medical establishments as hospitals established by government or trusts.
But majority of medical service is given by small establishments owned by single doctor. These are consulting rooms, small nursing homes (10 to 30 beds ), laboratories, diagnostic services.
Small individual setups are not given proper thought.
1. They are owned and managed by a single doctor.
2. This doctor works for 24 hours.
3. The trained staff (nurses, OT assistants, x-ray assistant ) is not available. He trains local persons of 9th,10th, standard. These people vanish suddenly. Doctor has to train new people again. This story repeats again and again.
4. So the doctor has to work single handed and take all stress, risks and blames.
5. He works without any financial security, retirement benefits and security.
6. More than 90% of medical service is given by these small set ups.
7. There is no clear reference about category of these small setups-residential/public/commercial/industrial/agriculture. These small setups are allowed in residential areas. But they are charged as commercial setups.
So he has to purchase infra structure at commercial cost, raise loan at commercial rates and pay taxes and services (water, electricity) commercially. This significantly increases their infrastructural and maintenance cost.
This increases and jeopardizes the cost of the medical setup and cost to patient.
8. Bigger hospitals are categorized as public setups. Bigger hospitals are benefited by low cost land, subsidy, tax benefits, associated nursing colleges/medical colleges etc.
THESE SMALL SETUPS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS RESIDENTIAL UNITS.
