Stay on Max hospital licence cancellation extended till April 12

An appellate body hearing the Max hospital twin death case on Thursday extended by two months the stay on a Delhi government order cancelling its licence in December, authorities said. The stay will be in effect till April 12, the next date of hearing, they said. Today's hearing was the second one in connection with the case, by the Financial Commissioner's court, Delhi.

The licence cancellation case pertains to the birth of a premature twin at the hospital in Shalimar Bagh 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 case triggered an outrage, prompting the AAP government's Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) to cancel the hospital's licence on December 8 for alleged medical negligence. The upscale hospital group on December 13 had filed an appeal in the Financial Commissioner's court against the cancellation of the licence, which stayed the order. "The appellate body has set April 12 as the next date of hearing. So, the stay order stands extended by two month for the hospital," Director General in the DGHS, Kirti Bhushan said, adding that the hearing lasted around 40 minutes. He, however, said, the Delhi government, has now emphasised on two other factors as the major grounds for cancellation of its license. "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," he said.

The alleged medical negligence in the twin baby case is, over and above these two grounds, Bhushan said. Today, 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 12." Following the initial stay order, the Max hospital had resumed its operation on December 20. "Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, continues to serve over 15,000 patients in its OPD, 3,000 patients in IPD per month including those from the economically weaker sections of the society," the group claimed.

Last month, the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) had sent the Max hospital twin baby case to its disciplinary committee and the hearing in the matter is likely to be held later this month.

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