Gurgaon activist goes to HC for EWS patient details

Times of India: Gurgaon: Saturday, 18 July 2015.

A city-based RTI activist moved the Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday, seeking a direction to private hospitals to furnish details of patients from the economically weaker section (EWS) who are supposed to be treated at discounted rates. The state had allotted land to private hospitals on the condition that EWS patients would be treated at subsidized rates.

On January 10, state information commissioner Urvashi Gulati had rejected an appeal filed by the activist, Aseem Takyar, who wanted complete information on EWS patients treated at private hospitals to be put out in the public domain.

The high court admitted Takyar's PIL on Thursday and a two-judge bench issued notices to the hospitals, HUDA, and director general of health services. The case will be heard on July 28.

"The hospitals claim that EWS patients are treated but the list they sent appears arbitrary and can't be cross-checked unless some more information is provided," said Aseem Takyar, the RTI activist.

Ashok Kumar Tyagi, advocate for the petitioner, said, "We have demanded action against authorities as well as against the hospitals for not adhering to the guidelines that require them to reserve beds for EWS patients because they got the land at concessional rates."

Though hospitals provided information about treatment of EWS patients before the matter was reported to the state information commission on September 15, 2014, the petitioner claimed that the information was incomplete and carried only names and addresses of patients while there was no mention of the treatment given, numbers of bed occupied by them and disease they suffered from.

The information commission rejected the petition saying that "further disclosure is undesirable in public interest".

Sources in a private hospital in Gurgaon told TOI they are following the state guidelines and regularly submit details of EWS patients to HUDA. A spokesperson for another private hospital also said details of EWS patients who received concessional treatment at the hospital are submitted to HUDA every 15 days and also uploaded on the hospital's website on a regular basis.