Chandigarh, March 27: The Punjab government will soon adopt the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act in the state, health minister Brahm Mohindra told the state assembly on Monday. The act, among other things, mandates that clinical establishments charge rates for procedures and services that are within the range that the government prescribes.
“A decision to this effect has been taken in a meeting held by chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh recently,” Mohindra said in response to a supplementary query raised by leader of opposition Sukhpal Khaira during the Question Hour.
Khaira had claimed that private hospitals were exploiting patients by charging hefty bills, suggesting that a regulatory mechanism should be put in place to deal with this. In the original question, Congress MLA Angad Saini had asked the minister about plans to improve health services in the state in 2018-19. Mohindra replied that besides other steps, 600 sub-centres would be upgraded to health and wellness clinics in a phased manner and 11 urban Community Health Centres (CHC) would be made operational.
“Biometric attendance will also be started at all district hospitals for ensuring presence of doctors and other staff in time,” he said.
Finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal said the government had cleared bills of retirement benefits of government employees received in the treasury between April 1 and December 31, 2017 of Rs 2,714 crore. The minister stated this in response a question asked by Congress Nathu Ram regarding the time frame within which the pending retirement benefits of government employees would be released.
“When we took over, bills worth Rs 7,791 crore were pending. There was a huge gap. While many of pending payments have been released, we will clear everything,” he assured the House.
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