Pvt hospitals find devious ways to deny poor patients beds

The report of EWS beds monitoring committee has revealed that some private hospitals did not admit even a single patient in April and used tactics to dodge the orders of the Delhi government. The attitude of the hospitals on providing primary health services to poor patients in OPD was also pathetic.

“The private hospitals in the city use several tricks to deny OPD and IPD facilities to the poor patients. Some hospitals initially admit the patients on EWS beds but later shift them on paid beds while some admit non-serious patients to show the occupancy,” said Ashok Agarwal, <g data-gr-id="41">member</g> of the EWS beds monitoring committee.

The committee has identified B L K <g data-gr-id="37">Super-speciality</g> Hospital, Rockland Hospital Dwarka, Shanti Mukund Hospital, Deepak Memorial, Jeevan Anmol, and Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre (RGCIRC) as rogue hospitals not extending the facilities.

“The condition to provide free treatment to <g data-gr-id="27">poor</g> patient is clearly mentioned in the land deal of <g data-gr-id="28">RGCIRC</g> but they never extended the facility,” said a senior officer of Directorate of Health Services. 

“Indian Spinal Injuries Centre used to shift those general category patients of EWS beds who had exhausted their resources while in Shanti Mukund Hospital EWS patients were admitted on general beds,” said Agarwal.

These hospitals did not extend services in OPD too. In the month of April, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute treated only 2.8 percent EWS patients in its OPD against mandatory 25 percent. Similarly, Rockland Hospital in Dwarka treated 1.4 % poor patients, Jeevan Anmol Hospital 2 percent, and Deepak Memorial 4 percent. 

The Directorate of Health Services is now preparing to write letters to the DDA, Land & Development Officer of Central government, and Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), the government agencies which had allocated land to these hospitals to take necessary action. 

As these hospitals had received land on concessional price from government agencies they are liable to provide 10 percent IPD and 25 percent OPD health services to poor patients free of cost.