Page 29 - GSTL_21st May 2020_Vol 36_Part 3

GST IMPACT ON HEALTH CARE/
NURSING/REHABILITATION CENTRES
By
CA Sagar V. Shah, FCA, ISA (ICAI), M.Com.

Health care services have been broadly exempted
under GST. Our focus of this article would be on health
care services provided by non-hospital centres which are
known either as health centres, nursing centres, general
health rehabilitation centres, residential care centres or the
like (henceforth termed such centres as health centres for simplicity). Such health
centres provide health care services to a patient like medication, accommodation,
food, nursing services, laundry services, etc.
Entry 74 of Notification No. 12/2017 exempts health care services; the
relevant extracts are as follows :
‘Services by way of - (a) health care services by a clinical establishment, an au-
thorised medical practitioner or para-medics;...’
Said notification also embeds health care services definition as under :
‘health care services means any service by way of diagnosis or treatment or
care for illness, injury, deformity, abnormality or pregnancy in any recog-
nised system of medicines in India and includes services by way of transpor-
tation of the patient to and from a clinical establishment, but does not include
hair transplant or cosmetic or plastic surgery, except when undertaken to re-
store or to reconstruct anatomy or functions of body affected due to congeni-
tal defects, developmental abnormalities, injury or trauma;’
Health care services covers care for illness and injury which are majorly provided
at such health centres. Illness is not defined under the Act thereby resorts to the
dictionary meaning. The Oxford Dictionary says as follows :
‘a disease or period of sickness affecting the body or mind.’
GST LAW TIMES  21st May 2020  29