No Fire NOC: 2 Quacks open hospital in Surat, sealed day after inauguration

Despite serious accusations against them, the individuals behind the hospital showed little concern and proceeded to operate a two-storey multi-speciality facility. The confidence of the quacks amused everyone as they circulated invitation cards openly and even invited municipal commissioner Shalini Agrawal as the chief guest for the inauguration and police commissioner Anupam Singh Gahlaut and joint CP Raghvendra Vats as guests of honour, reports the Daily.

Their antics were quickly put to rest when the facility was locked off just hours after it opened on Sunday. The facility was shut down by the authorities after they found necessary paperwork for things like biomedical waste disposal, doctor registration with the Gujarat Medical Council, and a fire department NOC was missing.

The two owners of the hospital were previously arrested by the Special Operations Group (SOG) for running a facility without proper license. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-4) Vijaysinh Gurjar told Times of India, "We found that out of the five doctors, two were arrested by the Special Operations Group (SOG) and Pandesara police for running the dispensaries sans valid degrees. Mishra also has three cases under the Prohibition Act registered against him in Surat, Surat (rural), and Navsari police. We are waiting for the report of the health department based on which we will register an offence against the quacks."

Despite the pending investigation, they established a two-floor facility, Janseva Multispeciality Hospital, in Karmayogi Society in Pandesara. During the inauguration, the authorities noticed the names of owners and checked online health portal for their registration. “We checked the online health portal and found there was no registration by the name of any such hospital. We also checked our records and found no hospital with such a name,” stated Dr Anil Patel, Surat Chief District Health Officer (CDHO).

The fire department also pointed out some major deficiencies in the fire safety measures. Fire officer Narottam Khalasi said, "They had fire pumps, but they were not connected to electric motors. There were no fire extinguishers as mandated by the law. We also found many other fire-related violations based on which we sealed it." Surat Fire Officer Ishwar Patel told The Indian Express that the fire safety measures were almost non-operational and there was shockingly no fire exit. 

Other than fire NOC, practising without proper registration is also a serious concern of the health department officials. The new rules of the state govt made it mandatory for each hospital to have a registration certificate under the Clinical Establishment Act 2021 from district health authorities. However, this hospital did not possess any such registration.

Surat CDHO Dr Anil Patel said, “We have sent our teams to the hospital to carry out a probe. The hospital authorities had not applied to our office for registration. Before starting such a hospital, they should at least inform us. Our teams will check whether the certificates of these doctors are genuine or not. Our team will also check if they possess a bio-medical waste certificate. Besides, it will also check whether the nursing staff are qualified or not as per Gujarat Nursing Council or Gujarat Medical Council norms. Our teams will prepare a report after which we will decide our future course of action.”