Health panel plans digital overhaul to speed up grievance redressal

The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission plans to digitise its records and encourage online complaint filing to speed up grievance redressal.

The newly constituted commission held its first hearing on Tuesday, taking up seven pending cases ahead of the festive season.

“If we become more popular, we anticipate the number of complaints will go up. Complaints would be filed online rather than offline, and we would rely on soft copies rather than hard copies. All records would be digitised,” said Justice (retired) Biswajit Basu, chairperson of the commission.

Digitisation would speed up the redressal process, the chairperson said.

“A person might file a complaint from faraway places. If the documents are digitised, we can circulate them among the members, making the process more convenient,” he said.

The system would benefit both complainants and the commission, with all complaints and related records maintained digitally. However, the transition could take time, an official said.

“If we can do that, our disposal rate (of complaints) will go up. We expect the scope of our intervention and action to be much wider than what we are doing today,” Basu said.

The commission, however, wants to address problems at their source to prevent complaints from being filed in the first place.

Its past cases have involved inflated bills, errors in surgical procedures, and excessive charges for services, medicines and consumables. Several private hospitals have been directed to pay compensation to patients’ families over irregularities.

The 13-member commission plans to increase the compensation that can be imposed on private healthcare establishments, Basu had said in September.

“We want to address the problem at its root so that complaints are not filed. That is where our focus lies. We want to address issues that would reduce the flow of complaints. We are trying to sensitise clinical establishments,” Basu said.

The commission has also directed hospitals and other clinical establishments to display doctors’ West Bengal Medical Council registration details alongside their names and qualifications.