Hospitals may lose charitable tag

Cracking down on charitable hospitals which flout rules by not reserving beds for poor patients, the state government is considering revoking their ‘charitable’ tag.

Senior health department officials said that in an inspection carried out in January, it was detected that 31 of the 53 charitable hospitals in Mumbai had not reserved 20% of their beds for patients from the below poverty line (BPL) and economically weaker sections. Also, many hospitals had not maintained an indigent patients fund for economically weaker patients.

While BPL patients are expected to get free treatment, economically weaker patients are entitled to concessional rates. Of the 53 charitable hospitals in Mumbai, 49 were inspected by teams of officials from the charity commissioner’s office, sales tax department, the civic body and state health department. Four hospitals could not be inspected as they were closed.

“Prima facie, many hospitals were not following regulations…like keeping the beds and (on) non-billable items like diet, OPD charges, medicines, laundry,” said an official.

Chief secretary JK Banthia said if these hospitals continued to flout the norms, they could lose their ‘charitable’ tag. “The charity commissioner can say that the registration as charitable hospitals is questionable,” said Banthia.

@dhavalkulkarni