Hospitals breach contract, get away

HT Correspondent

New Delhi, November 6

The Union Urban Development Ministry has worked out a “practical” solution to the problem of hospitals not providing free beds to poor patients as per lease terms.

Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has proposed to Lt-Governor B.L. Joshi that nine city hospitals, which are not treating poor patients for free in lieu of getting land at concession, be freed of their obligation. For this, hospital managements will have to pay the differential amount between the original allotment price and the current market price.

An amount of Rs 500 crore earned through this can be made into a corpus, which will be under the Lt. Governor’s management and will be used for health insurance schemes for the poor.

The interest from the corpus fund at 5 per cent per annum will be Rs 25 crore — enough to give health insurance cover to 4 lakh families in the city who are below the poverty line.

The insurance cover would reimburse medical expenses up to Rs 30,000 for hospitalisation, coverage of death due to accident of an earning head of the family for Rs 25,000