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The Bihar government has provided some ‘relief’ to doctors and nursing home owners by accepting four amendments to the Bihar Clinical Establishment (Control and Regulation) Bill.

The Bill was passed by the Assembly in the amended form after Health Minister Chandra Mohan Rai declared it was not intended to harass medical professionals.
The most important of amendments accepted by the piloting Minister – a step he took in consultation with the Chief Minister, as admitted by him – was to relax a clause of the Bill which laid down that following the notification of the new law no person could either establish or run a clinical establishment till he or she had obtained a valid registration certificate.

To this was added the following proviso: “but the newly-registered doctors will be exempted from its purview for three years from the date of their permanent registration with the Bihar Council of Medical Registration.”

This amendment should sound as music to the ears of younger doctors at the doorstep of their career in medicine.

The Bill also makes it mandatory on the doctors to submit their reports on their patients monthly to the Civil Surgeon. Earlier, they were supposed to submit the report weekly.

"The idea behind the Bill is to ensure that doctors give full attention to hospitals at which they are posted instead of pursuing private practice at their expense.

"They are free to practice after they have given their full eight hours to hospitals. We also want nursing homes to be run as per MCI rules for safety and well-being of patients,” he submitted.

Jail terms, he clarified, were not for violation of nursing home running rules but for only those that did not get themselves registered even after three warnings.