Half of charitable beds found vacant in 4 Mumbai hospitals

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has sent show-cause notices to four prominent private hospitals in Mumbai for not following official notifications on treatment of Covid-19 patients, and not admitting enough charitable patients.

The notices were sent to PD Hinduja, Lilavati, Jaslok and Bombay hospitals after state health minister Rajesh Tope went on a surprise visit to these hospitals on Tuesday to check if they were following the government’s order of reserving 80% of the beds for patients seeking healthcare under government schemes.

This 80% of beds are to be reserved for patients who fall under government schemes regardless of whether they are Covid cases or not.

During his visit, Tope found that these hospitals were not working up to even 50% of their capacity; no status of permitted beds and operational status of available beds was displayed in prominent places; no prescribed rates were displayed in hospitals; and there was no optimum utilisation of 90% of beds dedicated for Covid-19 patients and 90% of the beds that came under charity obligation remained vacant.

“These are serious violations of the said notifications,” the state health department said in its letter to these hospitals. “In the light of above observations, you are hereby instructed to show cause why actions should not be initiated against your hospital...,” it said.

PD Hinduja Hospital, though, said it fully supports the government in the fight against the pandemic and has built “suitable facilities for Covid-19 treatment. “Currently, we are in adherence to all the provisions laid down by the state health regulators and are in the process of replying to the notice issued suitably,” the company said in an email response to ET. The other three hospitals could not be immediately contacted for comment despite several attempts.