National Drug Authority in offing for stringent quality norms

Chennai, Nov 18 (UNI) The Centre will set up an independent National Drug Authority (NDA) on the lines of Food and Drug Authority (FDA) in US to ensure stringent quality norms for drugs, regulate medical devices, blood banks, and regulate the drug industry as a whole, union health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss announced here today.

Inaugurating a ADMERT multi-speciality clinic he said a proposal in this regard was now before the cabinet for approval and when it is cleared by the cabinet and Lok sabha, the authority would come into force.

He said the Centre has also decided to establish Medical parks for manufacturing medinices and medical equipments. The first of the parks would come up at Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu soon, he said and added at present 90 per cent of the medical equipments were being imported.

''Once we are in a position to manufacture medical equipments indigenously, we can produce cost effective equipments and medical devices which would ultimately help the needy, he added.

Dr Anbumani Ramadoss also pointed out that the Centre would also introduce the Clinical Establishment Act soon and once this was passed, it would be mandatory for all the hospitals to register with the authorities concerned.

The registration authorities would be appointed at national, state and District levels under the proposed legislation.

He said under the Act, accerditation would be must for hospitals and its services for the first two years. This would help to improve the standard of public health in the country.

He said it was also proposed to amend the existing legislation to make it mandatory for all doctors to have 60 hours of continuing Medical Education (EME) once in five years.

He expressed concern over doctors who were hesitating to serve in the rural areas and said to overcome this problem, it was decided to introduce stringent conditions for fresh medical graduates. Under this proposal, the freshers soon after internship, must serve in a district head quarters hospital for a year and in a Primary Health Centre(PHC) for one more year.

Then only they would be given permanent registration certificate, he said.

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