Maharashtra Charitable Hospitals Must Reserve 20% Beds For Poor, Says New Amendment

On Thursday, the Maharashtra State Assembly passed an amendment to the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act to ensure that the poor receive proper medical treatment at charitable hospitals across the state. According to a Hindustan Times (HT) report, the amendment requires that all charitable hospitals benefiting from monetary concessions or exemptions from the state or central government, or the municipal corporation, must comply with the charity bed rules.

Under the existing policy, hospitals that lease land from the government are required to reserve beds for the underprivileged. However, the new amendment provides greater clarity on this rule.

Section 41AA of the act now mandates that charitable hospitals must reserve 20 per cent of their beds for patients unable to afford basic healthcare. Of these, 10 per cent must be free for patients who fall below the poverty line (BPL), while the remaining beds must be offered at concessional rates. Despite this policy, the government has received complaints from patients who claim they were either denied free treatment or charged unfair rates, with hospitals citing unclear rules.

To address this, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis proposed a bill to introduce two amendments to the act. "Charitable hospitals that have been exempted from paying annual contributions to the Public Trusts Administration Fund by the state government, as well as those receiving various tax exemptions, must follow the charity bed rule," the bill states.

Currently, only 94 charitable hospitals are providing charity beds. However, with this amendment, an additional 303 hospitals that have received different concessions are now required to follow the new rules, as stated by Ashish Jaiswal, the Minister of State for Finance in the state assembly.