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For people living below poverty line (BPL), there seems to be little hope for securing free admission and treatment at several hospitals in the city. Despite the fact that they fall under the category of an indigent patient and can avail of treatment free of cost, there are practically few hospitals who even display a notice board announcing the scheme.
Topping the list is Sahyadri Hospital that has been issued several notices by the Charity Commissioner’s office. In fact, a high-level meeting of the Tadarth Committee that includes MLAs will be visiting Pune on Thursday to take stock of the situation at hospitals. It is understood that the committee has planned inspection at Sahyadri, Ruby and Jehangir hospitals, among others. Joint Charity Commissioner G D Tadwalkar confirmed that the committee will inspect the Sahyadri Hospital. He said notices had been issued to the hospital management for meeting the norms and guidelines laid down by the Bombay High Court directive of August 17, 2006.
According to the directive, charitable hospitals have to implement the provisions of the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950, that entails reserving 10 per cent of the total number of operational beds for indigent patients free of cost. Dr Charu Apte, managing director of Sahyadri Hospital, when contacted, refuted the allegations that the hospital was not reserving beds for such patients. “We have our own social outreach programme for charity and even conduct a programme with the PMC for senior citizens,” Apte said.
Dr P S Pawar, medical superintendent, Sassoon Hospital, who is also a member of the monitoring committee to implement the scheme, said it had taken an entire year for hospitals to understand these guidelines and set up an Indigent Patient Fund that credits two per cent of the gross billing of all patients without any deduction.
The scheme to be followed by charitable hospitals for the effective implementation of the provisions under Sections 41 AA of the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950, includes nursing homes, maternity homes, dispensaries or any other centres for medical relief and whose annual expenditure exceeds Rs five lakh. They are regarded as aided public trust.
The monitoring committee includes the Joint Charity Commissioner, a civil surgeon and a health officer of the Zila Parishad. According to the Charity Commissioner’s Office, several notices had been issued since last year and nearly 45 hospitals in the city were directed to implement the scheme as per the High Court directive. They have also urged patients to provide them with written complaints in the event of being refused admission.
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Recently(June 2009) my mother was admitted to Sahyadri Hospital, Deccan Pune. She was admitted for renal angipastry. The concerned people kept her on fasting,shifted her to dialysis department and then simply forgot. After fighting with the officials she was finally operated at 4.40pm. Myself, my mother and our relatives underwent mental torture many times due to negligence and incompetency of the junior level doctors. Situation does not seem to improve evenafter giving feedback. When she was again admitted in April 2010. The concerned staff forgot to keep her on fasting and the doppler test had to be postponed. What is more disturbing is that the junior doctor(???) did not know about the fasting condition.