Pvt hospital flouts rules

Uses beds for the poor to treat its paid patients

Beds for the poor at a private hospital here are being used for rehabilitation of patients admitted there at the paid category, an inspection team from the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) has found on Saturday.

The monitoring committee has now directed the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, Vasant Kunj, to reserve seven beds for poor patients suffering from spinal injuries and seven for orthopaedic care. 

The hospital needs to immediately stop this practice and admit only the poor patients in the free beds, the committee has now directed. 

Even though poor patients are kept in waiting and the data shows well utilisation of free beds, the number of poor patients benefitting from the reserved free beds is negligible. 

Patients belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS) can claim free treatment at identified private hospitals in the city. These hospitals have 10 per cent quota for indoor patient department and 25 per cent quota for outdoor patient department. 

Of the 145 operational beds at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, 15 beds are reserved for patients from the EWS category. One bed is reserved in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). 

“The committee observed that patients who were earlier admitted in the paid category were shifted to the beds reserved for poor patients for their rehabilitation. These patients are already charged in advance as part of the treatment package. The free beds are being turned beds for paid patients. On the other hand, the waiting for poor patients is going up to over 90 at the hospital,” said Ashok Agarwal, member of the EWS monitoring committee, DHS.

In the past few years, the data has consistently shows good utilisation of free beds at the hospital. But the ground situation became clearer when poor patients were turned away from the hospital.

“The data was extremely misleading as we believed the beds were being well utilised” said Agarwal.

The monitoring committee has now directed the hospital authorities to admit only EWS patients, especially those being referred through the DHS.