Health ministry to name and shame unclean hospitals

Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Thursday threatened to “name and shame” government hospitals and health centres that would not follow a minimum standard of cleanliness and infection control as suggested by the government.

The best and worst performing hospitals would be declared based on union health ministry's own assessment and public views about a particular hospital after visiting the unit.

"From next year, we will not only name and award hospitals which perform very well under the Kayakalp initiative but will also name those health facilities which will not perform up to the mark on various parameters, including sanitation, waste management and infection control," Nadda said here after felicitating some of the better performing hospitals and health care centres.

Kayakalp is a national guideline for clean hospitals prepared by the health ministry in 2015. In order to encourage the hospital administration to keep their premises hygienic, the Centre instituted awards for district-level hospitals, and community and primary health centres.

A year later, the ministry also released a smartphone application named ‘MeraAspataal (My Hospital)’ to capture patient feedback after visiting a government hospital or health centre. Nadda claimed nearly 1,000 health centres and hospitals were now connected to the App.

Nadda said to fix accountability at various levels, the ministry would make public names of the hospitals getting negative feedback from patients through the App.