News Digest

Treat poor for free: SC to private hospitals
NEW DELHI: Poor patients will get free treatment in 40 private, state-of-the-art multi-specialty hospitals in Delhi without any exception and for any disease or ailment, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik asked these private hospitals, which had got land at concessional rates from the government, to reserve 10% of their inpatient department (IPD) capacity and 25% of OPD for free treatment of poor patients.

Though 27 private hospitals had fallen in line, 10 hospitals had challenged a Delhi High Court order asking them to provide free treatment to poor patients. The court dismissed all the petitions.

Seven fresh dengue cases reported in city
NEW DELHI: Seven new cases of dengue were reported in the city on Thursday, taking the total number of cases of the disease to 73 this season. According to MCD officials, maximum number of cases are being reported from Civil Lines and Karol Bagh zones.


Discrimination keeps poor patients away
NEW DELHI: A High Court order that made it mandatory for private hospitals to provide free treatment to poor patients has made little difference to those for whose benefit it was passed.

Hospitals invariably charge patients for diagnostics , medicines and consumables and the attitude of the doctors is often discouraging enough to dissuade poor patients from approaching highend medical facilities.

Instead they prefer to wait endless hours outside government hospitals where atleast they know what to expect. It is no wonder then that the free beds in private hospitals generally remain vacant.


Half of urban women have hypertension
NEW DELHI: Hypertension, which is directly responsible for 57% of deaths due to stroke and 24% of fatalities caused by heart attack, has been found to be rampant in Indian women.

A multi-centre three-year study, spearheaded by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and published in the "Journal of Human Hypertension" on Thursday, said almost one in two women in urban study sites and one in three women in rural sites, were suffering from hypertension. Worryingly, overall, only one in five hypertensive women were on treatment, and less than 4% are controlled.

Read More: Times of India