Soon, private hospitals may have to pay fine up to Rs 50,000 if they fail to report the number of TB patients they receive, to the state health department. This has been included in the new draft formulated by the state TB department and submitted to the ministry last week. It will be presented in the assembly for discussion and if implemented then Maharashtra will be the first state to enforce such a policy.

Missing data
As per the data of the TB department, almost 60 per cent of the patients go to private hospitals for treatment. And these hospitals don’t inform the state department about the number of patients they receive. As a result, they can’t keep track of the patients who are undergoing treatment under the Directly Observed Therapy Shortcourse (DOTS) and fail to receive correct data. Hence, it hinders with policy formulations. So, in the new draft the department has made it mandatory for all private hospitals to report about TB patients.