Dengue crisis: Private hospitals don’t have enough ICU beds for the poor, says Delhi Health Minister

While Delhi grapples with the problem of hospital beds to accommodate the deluge of dengue patients, some upscale private hospitals have been found wanting in cooperating with the health authorities in tackling the crisis. They have failed to set apart a percentage of beds for the Economically Weaker Section as mandated by orders of the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court. This despite the fact the government doles out favours to them in the form of subsidised water and electricity, concessions on import of equipment and tax waivers. [caption id=“attachment_2440154” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] The two top courts, in their judgments in 2007 and 2011 respectively, had held that private hospitals which had been allotted government land at concessional rates, shall treat 25 percent of EWS patients in OPD (out-patient department) and  10 percent in IPD (in-patient department) “completely free of charge in all respects”. The order came on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by NGO Social Jurists. However, some of the private hospitals supposed to be providing free treatment and reserving beds are either refusing or delaying treatment to poor patients. Sometimes, they furnish inflated bills which patients cannot afford. Health Minister Satyendra Jain accepted that private hospitals are flouting the court guidelines. “We have got complaints that hospitals are turning away critical patients citing lack of beds. They want to take cases that can be managed easily. In the ICUs, beds are hardly available for EWS patients,” he told Firstpost. Asked what action is the government taking against the hospitals, he replied, “Health officials are conducting random checks to review occupancy of beds in the EWS category. We will ensure they will get proper surgical and critical care.” Advocate Ashok Agarwal, founder of Social Jurist and a member of a Delhi high court-appointed panel to oversee the implementation of the EWS scheme in private hospitals, say it is “travesty of justice”. “At present, we have 50 hospitals under this obligation (to provide facility for EWS),” he said, adding the issue is in court again but there has not been a single hearing for the last two years. “The next hearing on the case is on Tuesday… It is a challenge to ensure these hospitals do not flout their lease agreements.” An official of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said the question to the hospitals should be put to the Delhi Development Authority because the “DDA is the land owning authority, not the state government”. “We only have the mandate to give licence to private hospitals which we cannot cancel if they are fulfilling the criterion set by the Medical Council of India,” he said. He found faults with the arrangements arguing that “land for beds scheme is nowhere in the world”. The private hospitals Firstpost tried to speak to did not want to respond, saying the matter is sub-judice.