New Delhi: Doubtful of whether the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi had adhered to its lease condition of providing free treatment to ‘poor’ patients, the Supreme Court ordered the state and Union governments to examine how many poor patients it treated in the last five years.
The bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh remarked that the hospital was unaffordable for poor people despite paying Re 1 to the government as rent for its land and that if it found out they were not being provided free treatment, it would “hand over the hospital to AIIMS [the All India Institute of Medical Sciences],” the Indian Express reported.
The court noted that the hospital is located on land that was leased to the Indraprastha Medical Corporation by the government at a token rent of Re 1 per month in March 1994.
As per the lease deed, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital was obligated to provide free treatment to poor patients “to the extent of [a third] of its bed strength and 40% of its outdoor patients”, the top court noted.
“Unfortunately, the hospital management refused to adhere to the said obligation,” the Supreme Court noted on Tuesday (March 25), adding that this had led to the Delhi high court issuing directions to ensure the provision of treatment to poor patients.
“Despite lapse of more than 15 years there has been hardly any implementation of the conditions of the agreement providing for free treatment to indoor and outdoor patients,” the Delhi high court had said in 2009.
It had also directed the provision of 200 beds at no cost to IPD patients at the hospital.
Later that year the Supreme Court also ordered that the hospital continue providing 200 beds at no cost.
However, the apex court said on Tuesday that “we are not sure whether even that benefit to the poor patients has been granted so far”.
In light of this and the fact that the hospital’s lease appears to have expired, the Supreme Court ordered the state and Union governments to submit a joint report examining the hospital’s compliance within four weeks’ time.
This report is to state whether the lease has been renewed and if so on what conditions; and that if it has not been renewed, what steps have been taken to restore the government land.
An expert team is to also find out the hospital’s total bed strength and record its outpatient footfall stretching back to at least five years.
“The affidavit will further explain how many poor patients, on the recommendations of the state authorities, have been provided indoor treatment or have been treated as outdoor patients during at least the last five years,” the court added, also giving the hospital’s management liberty to furnish these details itself.
The Apollo Hospitals’ Group and the Delhi government own a 25% and 26% share respectively of the Indraprastha Medical Corporation.
The Supreme Court noted on Tuesday that “if the Delhi government is earning profit from the hospital instead of taking care of the poor patients, it is the most unfortunate thing,” as per the Indian Express.
