Medical Council Expired, Hospitals Run Without Regulatory Body
Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association urges state to reconstitute Clinical Establishments Council for safety and compliance
Hyderabad: The tenure of Telangana’s Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Council has lapsed for over a year, leaving hospitals across the state without an active regulatory body. The Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) has urged the state government to immediately dissolve the expired council and reconstitute it with representation from medical and professional organisations.
The council, formed under the Clinical Establishments Act (CEA), is responsible for standardising safety and quality norms in hospitals and ensuring compliance with fire, biomedical waste, and municipal regulations. However, since the term of the existing council ended in 2024, no fresh appointments have been made. “Without a functioning council, smaller hospitals have no channel to raise issues related to licensing or compliance delays,” said a private hospital administrator in the city.
HRDA has demanded that the new body include members from the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Telangana State Medical Council (TSMC), Telangana Government Doctors’ Association (TGGDA), and Telangana Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (THANA). The association also called for a single-window system integrating all clearances and for graded compliance norms that recognise the difference between small and mid-sized hospitals and large corporate ones.
“Doctors are not against safety rules, but the current system has become more bureaucratic than practical,” said HRDA in a statement to DC. “We support safety, not suffocating bureaucracy. Telangana needs clear, patient-friendly regulations that help rather than hinder hospitals.”
Doctors’ associations have asked the state to follow examples from Haryana and Bihar, where hospitals with fewer than 50 beds are exempted from full CEA compliance. Medical professionals say the absence of a functioning council has left the sector in uncertainty, with no updates on new norms or audits. “Hospitals are running in a grey zone, rules exist on paper, but no one is empowered to interpret or enforce them,” said an HRDA representative.
