Pune Municipal Corporation wards get power to keep watch over hospitals and sonography centres

PUNE: The civic body has decided to decentralise supervision of hospitals and sonography centres in its bid to increase the vigil on such health facilities. The move follows the detection of a bogus doctor in the city recently.
Civic officials said the work would be distributed at ward level. Ward medical officers would be trained to inspect the facilities, including medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) centres, to ensure that they have renewed their licences or have the due registration in place, they said.
Dr Kalpana Baliwant, assistant health officer, c (PMC), said, "We will train ward medical officers to inspect sonography centres to check for their documents under Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) Act and other regulations. The ward medical officers will have to carry out inspections for the sonography centres and IVF facilities once in three months and inspect the maternity homes and clinics twice a year. Although the central PCPNDT committee would be in place, the decentralization process would help inspect the centres on a routine basis."
Baliwant said as per the modification in the PCPNDT Act in February 2022, all surrogacy centres and artificial fertility clinics should be registered under the PCPNDT Act and monitored as per the latest guidelines. "We also expect a rise in the sperm banks in the city as under the modified regulations, we can now permit more sperm banks in the city. As of now, there is only one sperm bank in the city."
Activists, however, sounded cautious over the move. Kiran Moghe, women's activist and member of the PCPNDT committee, said, "The decision might help increase surveillance, but the ward medical officers are already burdened with the existing work. So, it is questionable if they would be able to carry out the surveillance on time. The PMC should recruit staff at the central PCPNDT cell."