Appreciation and words of thanks came flooding for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from all walks of life on Thursday, a day after she pulled up private healthcare facilities for over-charging and taking patients for a ride in the city. Citizens of Kolkata and other parts of Bengal welcomed the move to form the West Bengal Health Regulatory Commission to monitor the functioning of the private hospitals and nursing homes.
Calling it a "milestone decision" by the government, the people from the city, especially the victims of medical negligence and their family expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the Chief Minister as they believe that the decision will help the patients in many ways, who till now, used to exploited by the private healthcare facilities.
It may be mentioned that in an unprecedented move, the Chief Minister on Wednesday pulled up the private hospitals and nursing homes over various issues including overpricing of bills, negligence in treatment and treating patients as an instrument for earning money.
The people of the state, who have become victims of over-pricing and negligence are happy as the head of the state has come up with a policy to check such an incident thereby, fixing accountability on the part of the hospital authorities.
Samir Dutta, a state government employee and a resident of Lake Town said Chief Minister's decision to form a health regulatory commission will strengthen the hands of common people and they will find a platform to raise their grievances.
"Time to time monitoring by the state government through a commission will keep the private hospitals under pressure. They would think twice before charging a patient arbitrarily once the commission starts functioning," Dutta said.
Sharing his experience, he said that one of his relatives had become a victim of medical negligence at a private hospital on the VIP Road when the authorities did not compensate the patient's kin for wrong treatment.
Dutta also alleged that most of the nursing homes on the VIP Road are not well-equipped. Even the nurses working in some of these places are not well trained. They charge arbitrarily from the people while the medical services extended by them are pathetic.
Aurobindo Dasgupta, an elderly person and a retired school teacher from Selimpur said, people will bless the Chief Minister if she can control the high-handedness of some the private hospitals who charge people heftily and only treat patients as a medium to earn money.
"We will see how far the Chief Minister becomes successful in dealing with the private hospitals. It remains to be seen if the proposed health commission can check the over-pricing of bills, medical negligence and detention of patients for earning money," Dasgupta said.