The Office of the Charity Commissioner here has seen no new recruitments for the past 28 years. Senior officers from the department who have to keep a check on 48 charitable hospitals and nearly 65,000 charitable institutions in the district had written to the government several times,saying they are facing a severe manpower crunch. The office had launched its last drive and registered a case in March. It is increasingly difficult to conduct such checks,considering the poor staff strength in our office, a senior officer said. At present,the office has a staff strength of 35 four class I officers,25 class III officers and seven class IV employees. There are eight posts at the class III level,which have to be filled by transfers. In 1983,there were just 10,000 institutions; now,its 65,000. There is no way we can keep a tab on so many institutions with such meagre staff, the officer said. District Collector Vikas Deshmukh had,recently,asked all charitable hospitals in the district to submit the last three years audit reports,citing details of health services given to the poor. He had asked these hospitals to submit the reports within a month. He said the collectorate would conduct surprise checks after going through the audit reports and get details of health services provided to these patients. We are planning to conduct a detailed survey of all these hospitals, Deshmukh had said after Mondays meeting. The Charity Commissioners office will have to conduct raids on hospitals and check whether the poorest of poor are attended to. Ironically,the office had time and again mentioned that there is not enough staff. The office can take action against these hospitals for violating norms under section 41 AA of the Bombay Public Trust Act,1950,which aims at providing free and concessional health services to poor patients through charitable hospitals. It is also mandatory for these hospitals to put up signboards. Also,ten per cent of the beds should be reserved for the poor. The public benefit scheme is framed by the Bombay High Court and its implementation had started in September 2006. Under the scheme,all charitable hospitals have to reserve 10 per cent of their beds for indigent patients and 10 per cent of their beds for the economically weaker section. In respect of indigent patients,all the treatment is to be made free of cost by charitable hospitals. The scheme stipulates that two per cent of the total revenue of charitable hospitals should be spent towards free treatment and medications of poor patients whose annual income should not exceed Rs 25,000 under the Indigent Patient Fund. These hospitals get FSI,concessions in water,power,custom,octroi duties and sales and income taxes.
