MUMBAI, July 26: An accreditation system to evaluate whether private hospitals and nursing homes make the grade as far as medical services offered are concerned is in the offing. In a purely non-governmental effort, a team of medical associations, consumer societies and consultants from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, under the banner of the Forum for Standards in Health Care (FHS), will place private hospitals and nursing homes against a set of norms to evaluate whether they possess the requisite infrastructure to provide patients adequate medical care.The FHS has been at the project, spearheaded by voluntary health organisation Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT), since the last nine months. Hospitals or nursing home will be ranked after taking into account space, equipment and technology in use at private medical institutions. ``In case of space, for instance, the forum may suggest that an operating theatre must be around 150-200 squarefeet,'' explained Sunil Nandraj of CEHAT.The idea germinated during CEHAT workshops on the need to evaluate private hospitals, Nandraj told Express Newsline. ``Once we accredit nursing homes and hospitals, we will publicise the results, which will act just like an an ISI mark and help patients decide which hospitals are good and which are not,'' said FHS member Dr Lalit Kapoor.The move may breach the gap between five-star private hospitals, which compare with the best in the world at one end of the private health care spectrum and the claustrophobic rooms which pass off for nursing homes. A 1994 survey conducted by a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation committee pointed to appalling conditions in private hospitals and nursing homes, with a severe space crunch, congested passages and operation theatres and labour rooms in spaces originally designed to be kitchens. Only less than a third of the institutions surveyed had qualified nurses.There is no authority to keep tab on such private medicalinstitutions, pointed out Nandraj. ``There are no standards of medical practice prescribed for private hospitals in terms of qualification of staff employed, equipment needed, etc.'' It is this anomaly which the FHS hopes to set right, added Dr Kapoor.``A system of accreditation will benefit us too,'' said Shobha Sah, Assistant Manager, Oriental Insurance Company. ``If it comes about, each hospital and nursing home will charge a fixed rate for particular services. At present, one pays Rs 20,000 in one hospital and Rs 5,000 in another for the same operation, which creates problems for us while settling claims,'' she said. Accreditation may also bring about some uniformity in charges, she added.
