Stay on Max hospital licence cancellation extended again
While the family was on its way to perform the final rites, they found that one of them (a baby boy) was still alive.
New Delhi: The court of financial commissioner on Thursday extended by a month the stay on a Delhi government order cancelling the licence of Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, in December. The stay will be in effect till May 17, the next date of hearing, the appellate body said on Thursday, which was the third hearing in the case.
The licence of the hospital was cancelled by directorate general of health services, under the Delhi Nursing Home Registration Act, days after a newborn twin was erroneously declared “dead” by it. An order issued on December 8 stated that the hospital cannot admit any new patient and was directed to close all its operations, including the OPD and emergency services with immediate effect.
The case pertains to the birth of premature twins at the hospital on November 30 last year. Both the babies were declared stillborn by the hospital, one of them wrongly, and handed over to the family allegedly in a polythene bag.
While the family was on its way to perform the final rites, they found that one of them (a baby boy) was still alive. “The Max hospital side has raised certain objections to some of the questions raised by our side (DGHS). So, the court has asked us to file a written reply,” a top official of the Directorate General of Health Services.
The DGHS had on February 8, when the last hearing was held, said that the Delhi government would emphasise on two other factors as major grounds for cancellation of its licence.
“From our (DGHS) side, now the main grounds for taking action are the lapses on part of the hospital, involving the EWS (extremely weaker section) quota patients and dengue fever beds. And, we had sent notices to Max for these cases, even before the twin baby case was reported in the media,” the director general in the DGHS, Kirti Bhushan, had said.
Meanwhile, the Max Healthcare group, in a statement, said, “The relief granted to Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, earlier will continue, as the next date of hearing is fixed for April 17.”