PHM-Exch> Getting for the poor their due in private hospitals - The Hindu, 1st August

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Gopal Dabade <drdabade at gmail.com>


http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/Readers-Editor/article2311139.ece
The Hindu, 1st August 2011

Getting for the poor their due in private hospitals
The recent direction of the Supreme Court of India to government
hospitals in Delhi to refer poor patients to private hospitals gains
significance not only as one more pro-poor judicial pronouncement but
also because it highlights one of the major contradictions in India's
health care service: even as there has been a mushrooming of huge,
well-equipped, multi-discipline hospitals in big cities serving the
rich, thousands of rural India's poor patients have to go without even
a semblance of medical care when they desperately need it.
A two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice R.V.
Raveendran and A.K. Patnayak said that private hospitals would provide
the patients from the crowded government hospitals necessary treatment
free of cost, pending the preparation of a scheme that would involve
private hospitals in treating the poor. It is perhaps to find out how
far the private hospitals are right in claiming that if they provide
total free treatment to the poor they would become bankrupt. When one
of the counsels of the private hospitals told the court that nobody
was occupying the beds allotted for the poor, the Bench responded
stating, “It means you are not welcoming anybody.”
The Bench was hearing an appeal filed by private hospitals against a
2007 judgment of the Delhi High Court, which directed the private
hospitals to ensure free treatment to 10 per cent of in-patients and
25 per cent of outpatients. The High Court ruling made it mandatory
for private hospitals on the ground that they had received subsidised
land after giving an undertaking that the hospitals they built would
provide free treatment to the economically weaker sections of the
people.
The Supreme Court directed the Delhi government and the private
hospitals to draw the necessary modalities for the purpose. During an
earlier hearing of the appeal, the court came down heavily on the
private hospitals. Stating that they behaved like “star hotels,” they
were highly critical of these hospitals for collecting abnormal
charges from the poor. They also took strong objection to their
failure to honour their word and violation of the condition that the
poor be given free treatment.
The Supreme Court's bold initiative should enthuse social activists,
political parties, and the media to carry the message that there is an
urgent need to strengthen the public health security system in the
country so that deprived sections of the people could have greater
access to medical assistance in time. Only recently Nobel laureate
Amartya Sen warned that gigantic inequalities in access to healthcare
would lead to poor health in general. Commending the splendid work
done by human rights activist, Dr. Binayak Sen among tribal people, he
said that inequality in access to healthcare was not only bad
distribution of the overall health benefits; it also reduced the
overall health benefit.
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