IMA observes ‘Public Health Protection Day’

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) observed Friday (February 13, 2026) as ‘Public Health Protection Day’, demanding that small and medium hospitals in Kerala be exempted from within the purview of the Kerala Clinical Establishments (KCE) Act so that the common public can continue to access affordable and quality health care.

In the capital, IMA members staged a dharna in front of the Directorate of Health Services. In other districts too, IMA members staged dharna in front of the offices of the District Medical Officers raising the demand that small hospitals deserve special protection.

The IMA stated that small hospitals directly managed by doctors provide quality treatment at affordable cost. These hospitals are staffed mostly by medical and paramedical personnel and might lack elaborate office infrastructure and administrative arrangements. However, while this arrangement helps them to lower the overheads and offer treatment at lower rates, this makes it difficult for them to handle elaborate office or administrative work.

Health-care cost to rise

Imposing additional infrastructural and administrative requirements on the small hospitals will lead to a hike in operational costs, which would inevitably be transferred to patients, resulting in higher cost of care. Small hospitals in the State should be exempted from the ambit of the KCE Act, so that unnecessary regulatory and administrative requirements can be done away with and patients can continue to be delivered health-care services at reasonable costs, the IMA said here.

The IMA alleged that even though clinics that offer outpatient consultation services alone have been exempted from the Act, the manner in which the officials responsible for implementing the Act have been interacting and “unnecessarily intervening” with these clinics can be a hurdle in the way of providing affordable and quality OP services to the public. It said that such interferences run contrary to the government’s stated objective in offering exemption to clinics from the ambit of the KCE Act

The protests were led by IMA district committees, with participation from representatives and members of 110 branches of the IMA in Kerala. A memorandum outlining IMA’s demands has been given to the authorities, IMA State president M.N. Menon and State secretary Roy R. Chandran said.