‘Implement Supreme Court orders on private hospitals’

Visakhapatnam: Referring to the Supreme Court directive on the managements of private hospitals and educational institutions, which have been taking subsidies and other sops from the state government, should render 35 per cent value of their total services to the poor free of cost, former Union Health Secretary EAS Sarma urged the state government to take steps and implement the orders in the state.

In a letter to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the former bureaucrat, said that the state government allocated a huge extent of lands to private hospitals and educational institutions. The government also created infrastructure and some MPs also allotted their MPLAD funds for setting up of various public utility facilities at the institutions.

“If, we calculate the value of the lands, infrastructure expenditure and facilities created by the MPs to the private managements, there is no difference between the public and private institutions. However, private managements have not given any sort of free services or reservations to those belonging to the backward sections of society. The government is also not asking the management to provide some reservations in their services to the poor,” EAS Sarma said.

Two days ago, the Supreme Court in a case related ‘Union of India Vs Moolchand Khairati Ram Trust’ in a civil appeal 3155 of 2017, ruled that the private hospital managements should reserve 35 per cent of services to the backward classes in New Delhi, Sarma informed. He also requested the Chief Minister to take immediate measures and implement the court orders in Andhra Pradesh too.