Private hospitals asked to share info on poor patients

Times of India: Gurgaon: Friday, 25 July 2014.

State information commissioner Urvashi Gulati has directed private hospitals to follow provisions of the right to information (RTI) act and share details of poor patients treated by them.

Two of the city's leading multi-speciality hospitals 'Medanta and Artemis' had allegedly refused to share the details with the deputy civil surgeon sought through an RTI application filed by Aseem Takyar on September 14 last year. The deputy civil surgeon is also designated as the state public information officer (SPIO).

The civil surgeon, who functions as the first appellate authority, then sent the request to the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) as the authority gives land to private hospitals on a concessional rate. Yet, the information was not released. The hospitals expressed reservation in sharing information sought by the civil surgeon on the amount spent by them on treating the poor patients claiming that "they are not public authority as defined in Section 2(h) of the RTI Act".

When the matter came for hearing before Gulati, she observed, "A private body need not be a public authority. Information can be accessed because of the terms and conditions of the agreement signed between the hospitals and HUDA."

Gulati also directed the information officer to get details of amount spent on below poverty line (BPL) and economically weaker section (EWS) patients by all private hospitals in the city. Takyar had sought information on the number of BPL and EWS patients treated and admitted during the last six months along with their names, identity numbers and complete bills.

The CEO of Artemis Hospital, Dr Devlina Chakravorty, said, "Though we didn't get the land from HUDA at any concessional rate, still we treat the BPL and EWS patients for free and we send a quarterly report to the civil surgeon." When this TOI correspondent called Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman of Medanta, for his comment, he said he was busy.

Incidentally, HUDA administrator PC Meena had met representatives of private hospitals early last month and asked them to share information on treatment given to poor patients and submit a quarterly report to a HUDA committee.