You must have often seen that the industry houses take prized land from the government at very cheap rates, saying that they are treated at very affordable rates and then only the rich are treated in the hospital built on that land because the poor do not have the courage to pay the fees of that hospital. While taking land for the hospital, the management has signed the condition that they will have a certain amount of treatment for free. But the reality is completely different. You can find out by going outside or inside any private hospital, hardly any poor will have got treatment for free. It often comes to see that the poor are not allowed to get caught around these five star hospitals. But now the Supreme Court of the country has made serious remarks about the arbitrariness of private hospitals and the government’s ignoring the government.
In the famous Apollo Hospital case of Delhi, the Supreme Court has said that if free treatment of poor people is not available at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, it will ask All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to take it under its control. Let us tell you that a bench of Justice Suryakant and Justice N. Kotishwar Singh has taken seriously the alleged violation of the lease agreement under which the hospital operated by Indraprastha Medical Corporation Limited (IMCL) had to recruit a third of poor patients here and 40 percent of the patients in the external disease department had to provide free treatment. The bench said, “If we came to know that poor people are not being given free treatment, then we will hand over the hospital to AIIMS.”
The bench said that this land was given on a symbolic lease of one rupee for a hospital built on 15 acres of land in the posh area of Delhi by Apollo Group and was to be run on a formula without ‘without profit and loss’, but it has become a pure commercial venture, where poor people are able to get treatment hardly. At the same time, the lawyer appearing for IMCL said that the hospital is being run as a joint venture and the Delhi government has a 26 percent stake in it and has also benefited from earning.
Justice Suryakant told the lawyer, “If the Delhi government is earning profits from the hospital instead of taking care of poor patients, it is the most unfortunate thing.” The bench said that the hospital was leased for 30 years and the lease period was to end in 2023. The Supreme Court asked the Center and the Delhi government to find out whether its lease agreement was renewed or not. Let us tell you that the apex court was hearing a petition by IMCL, in which the Delhi High Court’s order of September 22, 2009 was challenged. The High Court had said that the hospital administration has violated the condition of an agreement to provide free treatment to the internal (indoor-detachment) and outdoor (outdoor) poor patients. The apex court asked the Center and the Delhi government that if the lease agreement has not been increased, then what legal exercise has been done regarding the said land. The bench also asked the number of existing total beds in the hospital and asked for a record of OPD patients of the last five years.
