Pvt hospitals to provide fee treatment to poor: SC

New Delhi, Sep 1 (PTI) The Indian Supreme Court on
Thursday ordered Delhi's private hospitals, built on
subsidised government land, to provide free treatment to the
poor, saying they cannot "wriggle out" of their
responsibility.
A bench of justices R V Raveendrana and A K Patnaik asked
the city hospitals to reserve 25 per cent of their out-patient
department capacity and 10 per cent of beds at the indoor
level for free treatment of the poor.
The hospitals cannot "wriggle out" of their
responsibility to treat the poor free of cost, the court said.
"The bottom line is that the poor patients are not to be
charged," said the bench, dismissing the plea of some private
hospitals against providing free treatment to the poor.
The court passed the order on a batch of petitions filed
by ten private hospitals challenging a Delhi High Court order
to provide free treatment to the poor patients as per the land
lease agreements between the government and them.
There are 37 hospitals which were granted land by the
government at concessional rates out of which 27 have been
providing free treatment to poor patients.
"Why did you (hospitals) take the land? You hand over the
land to the government and purchase it somewhere else," the
bench remarked when the counsel appearing for the hospitals
pleaded that it was not practical to provide free treatment to
the poor in all the cases.
"You want to wriggle out after signing the contract with
the government while taking the land (at concessional rate),"
the bench said.
The hospitals contended that the treatment of diseases
like cancer, neuro surgery and plastic surgery are costly and
cannot be provided free of cost.
The bench upheld the Delhi High Court's order, which, in
2007, had ruled that all private hospitals which were given
public land at highly subsidised costs would provide free
treatment to the poor, earmarking 25 per cent of their
out-patient department (OPD) capacity and 10 per cent of their
in-patient department capacity for them.
"They (poor patients) will be provided free admission,
bed, medication, treatment, surgery facility, nursing facility
and consumables and non-consumables. The hospitals charging
any money from such patients shall be liable to be proceeded
against in accordance with the law. Besides that, this would
be treated as violation of the orders of the court," the high
court had said.
The high court had pronounced the judgement on a PIL
seeking implementation of the land lease agreement between the
government and the hospitals for providing, among other
things, free treatment to certain percentage of the poor
patients out of their total treatment capacities.