New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has ordered all Delhi hospitals that got government land at cheap rates to treat poor patients free of cost.
The court clarified that by poor, it referred to families earning less than Rs 2,000 a month.
The court asked the hospitals to advertise the free service in the media and also told the Delhi government to see to it that its order is implemented.
The patients will have to give a declaration of their monthly earnings while availing these services, the court ruled.
The court passed the directive while dealing with the interim status report submitted by the court-appointed high-powered monitoring committee on provision of free medicare by private hospitals in the capital.
"What happened to the land allotted to these hospitals? Where have they disappeared? It's a very serious matter, have they converted this land also into shopping-malls?," the Bench
asked.
The committee comprised of Principal Secretary of Medical and Health and five others.
Earlier, the committee, in its report, submitted that preliminary findings had revealed that about 30 hospitals of the 59 allotted government land had at least constructed the hospitals, but violated the precondition of providing free medicare to the poor with impunity.
While some hospitals fudged records to show that they were treating the poor, others did not bother even to maintain any records or display the mandatory Board to indicate availability of free medicare.
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