Following the recent order by the Supreme Court to extend free treatment
to the poor people in the private hospitals, the Delhi administration
has launched a slew of pro-active measures including reviewing the lease
agreements for lands with the hospitals that fail to adhere to the
court instruction.
In a number of instances, the concerned
private hospitals which have charged money for treatment of economically
weaker section (EWS) patients have been directed to refund the same
following the court order. Besides, the government also directed the
Land & Development Office to initiate action under lease terms
against the private hospitals for non-adherence of the directions of
the High Court which inter-alia include cancellation of allotments,
re-entry of the hospitals and issuance of show-cause notices, sources
said.
The Delhi HC in its judgement on March 23, 2007 directed
all the hospitals which had got land at concessional rates from various
land allotting agencies to provide 10 per cent IPD and 25 per cent OPD
free of cost to eligible category of Economically Weaker Section
patients (EWS).
Later, 10 identified private hospitals filed SLP
in the Supreme Court and got an interim relief regarding operations,
investigations like X-ray, Ultrasound, CT Scan etc. However, the Supreme
Court in September this year dismissed the PIL and directed to provide
10 per cent IPD and 25 per cent OPD completely free of cost to eligible
category of EWS patients.
The government issued guidelines
regarding free treatment of eligible category of EWS patients in the
identified private hospitals in the year 2007 as well as in October,
2011, wherein both the identified private as well as Govt. hospitals
were directed to establish Special Referral Centres and appoint nodal
officers to facilitate referral of EWS patients, sources said.
“The
Government of NCT of Delhi created a web page which displays the real
time availability for free beds (critical as well as non critical) to
facilitate referral of patients. The information is available on the
www/.health.delhigovt.nic.in/mis/frmlogin.aspx. The Government has
constituted a monitoring committee comprising of Director Health
Services, Medical Officer In-charge Nursing Home Cell, PIL petitioner,
Medical Superintendent of St Stephen’s Hospital and Medical
superintendent of the concerned hospitals which inspects four to five
hospitals each month,” sources said
