Private hospitals working towards more transparency: Trehan

Private hospitals are working towards more transparency in terms of cost and procedures, some of the leading players said today.
Their stand comes against the backdrop of alleged medical negligence and overcharging by two private hospitals of the city.
Top executives of Medanta, Apollo Hospitals and Narayana Hrudayalaya, however, observed that shutting down a hospital is not a solution as it leads to a lot of hardships for patients.
They were interacting with reporters here today.
Of late, private hospitals have been in news for all the wrong reasons. While Fortis in Gurgaon came under a cloud because of the recent death of a 7-year-old girl from dengue and overcharging issues, a premature baby was wrongly declared dead by Max Hospitals, Shalimar Bagh.

"We have made a self-regulatory mechanism for private healthcare under the aegis of Indian Medical Association (IMA)... all stakeholders have agreed to it. We have added certain common denominators, it is a work in progress and we may even add more things to it," Medanta Chairman Naresh Trehan told reporters here.

It is the beginning of a framework where everything would become transparent, he claimed.
Asked about the action taken by the authorities to shut the Shalimar Bagh unit of Max Hospitals, Trehan said: "The hospital should not be closed because the public will suffer. The person who is responsible should be punished."

According to Narayana Hrudayalaya founder Devi Prasad Shetty, there are enough regulatory agencies for the healthcare sector in the country.
"Like any other profession, even in healthcare, there are good and bad people. But the message which has gone down is all private sector doctors are cheats, which is not true. Punish but only after proper evaluation," he advised.
Apollo Hospitals Vice-Chairperson Preetha Reddy said: "What IMA is doing is a great thing to make people more conscious, to bring in self-regulation. There are bodies which look into quality standards, they probably need to bring in best practices that are globally available.