Doctors who fail to notify TB cases could go to jail
Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com 22.03.2018
Chennai: Doctors, hospital administrators and chemists could face jail terms of up to two years for failure to notify cases of tuberculosis to local public health authorities.
A March 16 notification by the ministry of health and family welfare, published in the Government of India gazette, makes it mandatory for healthcare providers and clinical establishments to notify, in a specified format, every TB patient to a local public health authority such as district health officer, chief medical officer of district municipal health officer of urban local bodies.
Pharmacists dispensing anti-TB drugs should notify tuberculosis patients along with details of medicines in a specified format, maintain a copy of the prescription along with details of the doctor and furnish this data to the nodal officer either by electronic communication or by hard copy.
“The clinical establishment, pharmacy, chemist and druggist [who fails] to notify a tuberculosis patient to the nodal officer... not taking appropriate public health action on receiving tuberculosis patient... may attract provisions of sections 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860), as the case may be,” the notification said.
India accounts for about a quarter of all the tuberculosis cases in the world. It has the highest burden of TB and drug resistant TB.
In March 2017, the Centre announced that it would eliminate tuberculosis by 2025. Notified cases of pulmonary TB each year include an estimated 79,000 multi-drug resistant TB patients. There were an estimated 28 lakh cases of tuberculosis and 4.5 lakh people died of the disease in 2016.
Studies have repeatedly shown that one of the hindrances to elimination of tuberculosis is that more than one million are not notified every year either because they remain undiagnosed or are undertreated.
The ministry has issued reporting formats as Annexure I and Annexure II for medical laboratories and medical practitioners, respectively.
It has also encouraged patients on self-notification, asking them to submit details about themselves and their medical practitioners.
Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com 22.03.2018
Chennai: Doctors, hospital administrators and chemists could face jail terms of up to two years for failure to notify cases of tuberculosis to local public health authorities.
A March 16 notification by the ministry of health and family welfare, published in the Government of India gazette, makes it mandatory for healthcare providers and clinical establishments to notify, in a specified format, every TB patient to a local public health authority such as district health officer, chief medical officer of district municipal health officer of urban local bodies.
Pharmacists dispensing anti-TB drugs should notify tuberculosis patients along with details of medicines in a specified format, maintain a copy of the prescription along with details of the doctor and furnish this data to the nodal officer either by electronic communication or by hard copy.
“The clinical establishment, pharmacy, chemist and druggist [who fails] to notify a tuberculosis patient to the nodal officer... not taking appropriate public health action on receiving tuberculosis patient... may attract provisions of sections 269 and 270 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860), as the case may be,” the notification said.
India accounts for about a quarter of all the tuberculosis cases in the world. It has the highest burden of TB and drug resistant TB.
In March 2017, the Centre announced that it would eliminate tuberculosis by 2025. Notified cases of pulmonary TB each year include an estimated 79,000 multi-drug resistant TB patients. There were an estimated 28 lakh cases of tuberculosis and 4.5 lakh people died of the disease in 2016.
Studies have repeatedly shown that one of the hindrances to elimination of tuberculosis is that more than one million are not notified every year either because they remain undiagnosed or are undertreated.
The ministry has issued reporting formats as Annexure I and Annexure II for medical laboratories and medical practitioners, respectively.
It has also encouraged patients on self-notification, asking them to submit details about themselves and their medical practitioners.
No comments:
Post a Comment