Wanted: A nurse for 'patient' Fortis Healthcare who won't kill it

Before any new ailments are diagnosed for the auditor to have to change that opinion, the patient needs to find new caregivers

Fortis Healthcare Ltd's auditors have cleared the decks for its sale. Never mind that Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP's heavily qualified audit report reads like a discharge slip for a patient running low on both time and luck.

Working out whether India's second-biggest hospital chain is too deeply damaged to survive has been left to the imagination of the two bidders jostling for the opportunity to nurse it back to health. Malaysia's IHH Healthcare Bhd and TPG-backed Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt have already submitted firm bids. IHH is more likely to emerge victorious because it's planning to make an open offer