Govt to take action against quacks, says Gujarat’s health minister

Gandhinagar: The state govt, which recently amended the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, has said that it will come down heavily on fake and unauthorized medical practitioners. It has said that as a mandate, all medical practitioners, including ayurveda practitioners, must register with the state govt. "The govt will act strictly in cases where registrations are not done or doctors have fake degrees," state health minister Praful Pansheriya said on Thursday while appealing to the public to seek treatment only from qualified and registered medical practitioners.The amendment to the Act, done at the recently concluded assembly session, extends the period for all clinical establishments to get registered. "Clinics and other medical establishments are required to put up boards, mentioning the qualifications of doctors," he said.Pansheriya said that in several cases, people, especially in rural areas, do not consult qualified medical practitioners in cases of snakebites and other bites. "Instead of visiting quacks, I appeal to people to call the 108 EMRI service. These ambulances are stocked with antivenom and other medicines," he said.Recently, a 49-year-old from Okha was put behind bars for allegedly practising allopathy without having studied medicine. Lalit Rabadiya, who police said, was formally educated only up to Class 12, ran a clinic from Okha's Bhunga area for nearly 20 years, treating patients without authorization and thus, putting their lives at risk. The special operation group (SOG) of Devbhumi Dwarka police arrested him in a raid based on a tip-off. Rabadiya , currently out on bail, claimed to have ‘learnt' basic medical practices while assisting his uncle, who was a doctor in Rajkot district.Meanwhile, at the assembly session, the govt in a written reply to a question stated that 2,724 complaints of bogus doctors were received between 2021 and 2023. Investigations into these revealed that 169 had fake degrees. According to the data tabled in the assembly, the health department received 839 such complaints in 2021, 875 in 2022 and 1,010 in 2023.