The Dharamshila Cancer Hospital has been accused of refusing to admit a critical cancer patient despite having 18 out of 20 EWS beds vacant. The needy patient has thereby knocked the doors of Delhi High Court, which has fixed a hearing on Wednesday.
“When all efforts failed, along with Dr R N Dass, medical superintendent of Delhi government, I conducted a surprise inspection of the hospital. We were surprised to know that only two out of 20 beds under the EWS category were occupied but the hospital was turning away EWS patients with frivolous reasons,” said Ashok Agarwal, member of Delhi EWS monitoring committee.
“The patient welfare officer deployed at the hospital proved ineffective in solving the case. It was only after we threatened legal action against the management that the hospital admitted him,” he added. The patient, Soumaya Ranjan (17), who is suffering from Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma, had been forced to wait by the gates of the hospital since last five days. Dharamshila Cancer Hospital and Research Centre falls in the category of ‘identified hospitals’ in Delhi and is liable to provide 10 per cent of its beds to treat EWS patients for free. “The patient had been lying outside the hospital since May 25, awaiting treatment,” he added. Ranjan had first approached the hospital around six months back but was not provided with proper treatment so he had gone to ESI in Faridabad.
“As the team returned from the hospital, I received another complaint of refusal to another poor patient. A woman alleged that the hospital refused to admit her father-in-law, who was referred by the GTB hospital, Delhi government,” informed Agarwal.
In the petition, the father of the patient, Basant Kumar has stated that his son, Ranjan is suffering from Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma, a form of cancer. As he is an ESIC insured person, he was initially treated at ESIC Darapur hospital, but referred to AIIMS on May 23. As AIIMS could not give early dates, the parents approached the Dharamshila Cancer Hospital. The hospital refused to entertain the patient on grounds of the case being under AIIMS.
“The managers in the hospital asked me to bring a referral letter from ESIC addressing Dharamshila Hospital, which was refused by the ESIC hospital. Both AIIMS and Dharamshila are in the panel of ESIC,” he added. Agarwal argued that the referral letter is immaterial if a patient is critical and belongs to poor category – the hospital can’t deny the treatment under such circumstances.