Private hospitals on public land are obliged to give free treatment

New Delhi, Mar 22 (UNI) The Delhi High Court today said all the private hospitals, allotted land at a concessional rate, are bound to provide free treatment to 25 per cent of the outdoor and 10 per cent of the indoor patients to the poor in the Capital.

A division bench of Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice H R Malhotra said, ''All the private hospitals are bound to abide by the recommendations of the Qureshi Committee in providing absolutely free treatment to the poor patients.'' The government and Delhi Development Authority(DDA), the land owning agency, are at liberty to initiate action against the defaulting hospitals by canceling the lease deed.

Pronouncing the judgement in a PIL filed by Social Jurist, the court said, ''Non-compliance of the directions would attract contempt of court.'' The court formed a committee comprising Director General of Health Services(DGHS), Advocate Ashok Agrawal and Superintendent of Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital(RML) to supervise the implementation of the directions of the court.

The Committee was also directed to make periodic visits to the private hospitals to ensure the implementation of the directions for free treatment.

All government hospitals in the capital are directed to set up a referral unit headed by Chief Medical Officer(CMO) and Medical officer-on-duty to refer a patient to any of the private hospitals for treatment, if the hospital does not have the technology or bed.

A patient, entitled for free treatment, could directly approach the private hospital and the authorities would send the information about the patient to the DGHS, which is the nodal authority to monitor the directions.

The government was asked to levy 10 per cent and 25 percent from the income in terms of indoor and out-door patients from the defaulting hospitals since two years after their establishement and create a ''Central Reserve Fund'' for spending the proceeds on the poor patients.

The Delhi Development Authority and Land&Development Office (L&DO) of Delhi Government had allotted 70 plots to various trusts and societies to establish hospitals out of which only 26 are operational. Out of 26, DDA has allotted 24 and L&DO two plots to provide free treatment to 25 per cent and 70 per cent respectively of the patients according to their agreements.

The Government had submitted the Quereshi Committee report, which recommended for forcing the private hospitals to provide free treatment to 10 per cent of the indoor patients and 25 per cent of the outdoor patients.

The Quereshi committee was formed in persuant to the High Court order on December 13, 2006 to frame a policy on providing free treatment in private hospitals.

UNI