Max Hospital in Delhi resumes operations after getting stay on licence cancellation from 'appellate authority'

Delhi’s Max Hospital has resumed operations days after its licences was cancelled by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), say media reports. The hospital in a statement said that a stay order has been issued by the appellate authority — the office of the Financial Commissioner SS Yadav — in the matter and that they were committed to providing quality healthcare to their patients.

#BREAKING - Delhi's Max Hospital gets stay on Delhi govt ban, resumes operations. pic.twitter.com/YyQBhq1KJR

— News18 (@CNNnews18) December 20, 2017

Further, when the cancellation was criticised , Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had defended the order , saying, “Delhi government is not against private hospitals and is fully aware of their importance. But Max Hospital left us with no option other than to take action. This is not happened first time. Such kind of erroneous act was done by the hospital on many occasions in the past too.”

It had been reported  last week that the hospital had moved a “government authority” against the cancellation of its licence. A spokesperson of the Max Healthcare, when asked to elaborate about the appropriate authority approached, had said, “It is not a court authority but a government authority. And, the appeal was filed today.”

However, while the hospital had declined to share details on the appropriate government authority approached by them, Delhi High Court advocate Ashok Agarwal had claimed that in such cases, “the appellate authority is the Lieutenant Governor’s office.”

“As per the Delhi Nursing Homes Registration Act, 1953, in cases related to cancellation of licence, the appellate authority is the L-G office,” Agarwal, also a member of the Delhi High Court-appointed EWS Monitoring Committee for hospitals, said.

The Max Hospital case pertains to one of the premature twins, wrongly declared dead on 30 November at the hospital where he was born, and who died during treatment at a nursing home in Pitampura a week later.

Both the babies were declared stillborn by the hospital and handed over to the family allegedly in a polythene bag. But to their utter horror, they found that the boy was still alive, while they were on way to do their final rites.

With inputs from agencies