Uphaar seminar

NEW DELHI, January 13: Several eminent residents of Delhi today criticised private hospitals and nursing homes for failing to equip themselv...

NEW DELHI, January 13: Several eminent residents of Delhi today criticised private hospitals and nursing homes for failing to equip themselves to tackle emergencies.

Despite the fire at the Uphaar cinema which claimed 59 lives, the Wazirabad school bus accident in which 30 children died, and the series of bomb blasts which killed 13 people and injured scores of others, none of the hospitals had learnt lesson, they said.

The forum was a panel discussion on the Role of Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes to Provide Emergency Health Care8217; organised by the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy AVUT. Senior Supreme Court Advocate K.T.S. Tulsi said that most hospitals offered excuses such as lack of beds or police high-handedness whenever they were pulled up for not admitting patients even in an emergency.

Tulsi said that such excuses were hollow as the records available with the Delhi administration indicated that most of the private hospitals quoted very low occupancy rates.

While Ganga Ram Hospitalhad told the administration in 1996 that only 22.4 per cent of their beds were occupied at any given time, other hospitals like Escorts, Batra, Jaipur Golden, and Moolchand had given figures of 11.33, 13, 16.98 and 10.76 per cent respectively.

8220;These figures clearly show that the hospitals have more than enough space for emergency treatment. And if the figures are fudged, it means the hospitals are trying to hide their income,8221; Tulsi said.

When Ganaga Ram Hospital director S.K. Sama said that the figures were wrong, Tulsi countered: 8220;The government should conduct a special audit on the statistics it has regarding private hospitals.8221;

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The issue of medico-legal cases being an easy excuse for private hospitals to refuse many patients also came up during the discussion. Other panelists like former director of Maulana Azad Medical College G.G. Mansharamani and journalist Subhadra Menon pointed out that the procedure for admitting such patients has already been simplified, and therefore doctors should no longer use this as an umbrella.