India News | Plea in HC for Forensic Audit of Several Pvt Hospitals
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A plea has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking a forensic audit of the private hospitals being run by charitable trusts on concessional land given by the government, alleging they were charging COVID-19 patients heavily.
New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) A plea has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking a forensic audit of the private hospitals being run by charitable trusts on concessional land given by the government, alleging they were charging COVID-19 patients heavily.
The matter was listed on Monday before a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh which adjourned the petition, filed by a lawyer, to June 24.
Delhi government standing counsel Ramesh Singh and central government standing counsel Anurag Ahluwalia said the bench adjourned the matter to June 24 to enable the petitioner to make some amendments to her plea.
The detailed order of the court is awaited.
Singh said he also placed before the bench two Delhi government orders of June 4 - one of which has directed more than 50 private hospitals, allotted land at concessional rates, to reserve 10 per cent beds each for COVID and non-COVID treatment under the EWS category.
The second order has directed all private hospitals and nursing homes, registered to provide treatment for coronavirus, to inform the health department about their schedule of charges for treatment of COVID-19 patients.
Besides that, the order also directs them to display, at conspicuous places like reception area and billing desk, the charges for various treatments, wards and tests, Singh said.
Gupta, in her plea filed through advocate Anubhav Singh, has sought audit of 11 private hospitals in the national capital which according to her are run on concessional government land by charitable trusts.
She has alleged that the trusts in collaboration with the private hospitals are involved in transmission of huge amounts of money for personal purpose.
She has further alleged that such trusts and hospitals have commercialised the nobel profession of medicine.
Gupta has also claimed that private hospitals have unreasonably increased the prices of beds, room rent, PPE kits, sanitizers and are also charging more than MRP for basic medicines.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)