The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government on Friday, December 8, cancelled the medical licence of Max Hospital at Shalimar Bagh in Delhi, just over a week after a dreadful case of medical negligence came to the fore.
The incident took place on Thursday, November 30. The parents of the prematurely-born twins at the hospital were told that the newborns had died. They were then handed over the "bodies" of the two babies in a polythene bag.
However, one of the twins turned out to be alive, and the matter came to light only when the last rites of the apparently dead infants were being performed!
Delhi govt cracks whip
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain told reporters on Friday: "We have cancelled the licence of Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh. The negligence in the newborn death case was unacceptable."
He added: "We have found negligence of the hospital [in the case]. This is not the only mistake. They are habitual offenders. So we have cancelled their licence with the immediate effect."
Jain clarified: "We had already sent notice to the hospital regarding its economically weaker section (EWS) quota and additional beds."
The notice being talked about had been issued on November 22 because the Delhi government had found that the hospital had violated "some norms related to providing services to patients of EWS category.
The government had also noted that only 10 percent patients in the OPD were being attended to at any given time, instead of the customary 25 percent.
'Shift patients'
The minister also said: "The Delhi government will not tolerate any kind of criminal negligence. There is no room for the kind of negligence that took place at the Max Hospital."
Jain added that with the medical licence cancelled, Max Hospital can neither admit nor treat any new patient now.
He also said the hospital has been ordered to "either finish the treatment of patients already admitted to it, or shift them to other hospitals."
