Bill to make private medical college hospitals patient-friendly in Bangalore

The department of medical education is contemplating enacting a law to regulate private teaching hospitals, as private medical colleges which run their own hospitals are known.

It is drafting a bill in this regard and the new piece of legislation is expected to be ready soon.

Confirming the move, medical education minister SA Ramdas said the law will be brought in as currently there was no authority to monitor private teaching hospitals.

“When I visited a private medical college hospital recently, I was shocked to hear from patients that they had not even been informed by doctors or hospital authorities about the treatment they were undergoing. So, we decided to bring in a new law to address such situations,”  said Ramdas.

The proposed law would make it mandatory for the private medical college hospitals to display a citizen’s charter detailing the services on offer and the fees they entail.

“Displaying the charter will help patients to decide whether to take treatment in that particular hospital or go elsewhere,” Ramdas said.

The hospitals will also be required to provide case histories to patients in Kannada for a specified fee.
“We will fix some amount for every page of the case history. Once the hospital provides the case history to the patient and based on that the patient wants to shift to some other institution, the hospital authorities will have to make required arrangements,” he said.

The department also proposes to make it mandatory for private teaching hospitals to attend medico-legal cases

The bill will also mandate that the teaching
hospitals must ensure that 33% of its patients are below poverty line card holders.