"The government has taken a very serious view of such unethical practices on the part of the certain private hospitals / clinical establishments in the states and Union territories," the apex court was told during hearing of a PIL filed last year by NGO Pravasi Legal Cell after the matter was raised at various fora including Parliament.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia posted the matter for further hearing in July after it was informed that the Centre has swung into action and a circular has been sent in February to the state governments stressing upon the need to protect and safeguard the interests of nurses /para-medical staff working in private hospitals and clinics.
Additional Solicitor General Gaurab Banerji submitted to the bench, which also included justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar, a February 24 letter of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which asked the state governments to issue instruction to private hospitals to "refrain" from retaining original certificates of nurses and para-medical staffers.
"All the state governments are hereby directed to issue instructions to the effect that all the hospitals / clinical establishments registered with the state / within their jurisdiction, may strictly refrain from the practice of retaining any of the original certificates or the documents of the nurses / para-medical staff employed by them.
"They may return forthwith the original certificates / documents to the concerned personnel within a fortnight at the latest and in case of any doubt, the original documents could be sought, however, only their attested photocopies may be retained by the authorities," said the ministry's letter to the state governments. (MORE)