Opinion: Hospitals shouldn't play with fire on quality accreditation, writes BG Menon

Lost not because of the illness they were suffering or recovering from, but lost due to the negligence of a hospital that was actually mandated to treat their aliments and get them back to a healthy life. With the SUM authorities, there has also been equal culpability from the Fire Department personnel, who said that the hospital had not adhered to the Fire Safety norms pointed out to them in an audit three years back. They felt this statement let them off the hook. The obvious questions not answered here is why they allowed SUM hospital to continue functioning without clearing the violations. Or is it that even as a regulator they do not have the power of shutting down a hospital for continuing with such critical violations. The loss of 21 lives is a very steep price to pay for getting an answer to these questions. 

This tragedy brings to the fore the very important role played by NABH – National Board of Accreditation of Hospitals and Healthcare Providers. To get this stringent Govt. of India Hospital Quality Accreditation, a hospital has to mandatorily comply with the Fire Safety Rules and any other Statutory Regulations in State governed hospitals. While the regulatory Agencies restrict themselves  to just issuing rules and not ensuring compliance, it is the NABH that presses the hospitals to comply with all these rules and regulations before granting the NABH. SUM Hospital is a typical example of this. While the State Fire department was content to just issue the Non Compliance Audit Report, the NABH simply cancelled the Accreditation of the Hospital at its last renewal audit in August this year, precisely on the issue of not complying with the Fire department’s requirements. Today the credibility of the NABH is so high that only if a hospital has this Hospital Quality Accreditation can one safely assume that the hospital has met all fire safety norms. The NABH accreditation also guarantees to the people, that the hospital has the properly qualified and experienced doctors and nurses, uses the right medicines, makes sure the testing equipment based on which the doctor makes his diagnosis is regularly calibrated and accurate, infection controls properly in place and most importantly, all patient safety aspects are rigidly adhered to. 

It is the need of the hour for more people to become aware of this  highest level of Hospital Quality Achievement and to insist that their hospitals also get this coveted National Accreditation.