Bhubaneswar: In a protest against alleged harassment of private hospitals by the Odisha Government, the All Odisha private medical establishment forum has announced that 1,780 private hospitals across the state would remain closed May 25.
Spokesperson for the forum, Subrat Jena, announced this at a media meet held after a general body meeting of the forum at the IMA Bhawan here Sunday.
“As per a decision taken at the meeting, about 2,000 private health clinics including 1,780 private hospitals, diagnostic centres, and physiotherapy and radio therapy centres in Odisha would remain closed for 24 hours from 6am May 25 . During the period, health service would be provided only to patients already admitted to these hospitals.” Jena said.
He said under the Clinical Establishments (Control and Regulation) Rules, 2017, the state government was neither registering new private hospitals nor renewing the licences of old private hospitals. “Though the forum has taken up the matter with the state government since 2014, there was no response,” Jena said.
He said the forum has urged the state government to resume registration and renewal of licences of the private hospitals, requests for which have been pending since 2014, and allow doctors of the private hospitals to discharge their duties efficiently.
“The forum has asked the state government to fulfil its demand within a month failing which all private hospitals and clinical establishments would remain closed indefinitely,” he said.
Among others, forum president Dr Ajay Mishra, vice-president Dr Jagannath Mohapatra and secretary Dr Indramani Jena spoke.
