A committee of the Haryana Assembly on May 17 inspected the super-specialty Medanta-The Medicity, Artemis and Fortis hospitals here and found that they were not treating a given number of poor patients for free, as per the government's guidelines.

The Subject Committee on education, technical education, vocational education, medical education and health services is headed by Umesh Aggarwal, the MLA from Gurugram. It has eight other legislators representing different constituencies of Haryana and three MLAs as special invitees. Aggarwal was present during the inspection besides MLAs Karan Singh Dalal, Kuldeep Sharma, Om Prakash Yadav, Ramchand Kamboj, Jasbir Deswal and Nasim Ahmad.

After inspection of Medanta-The Medicity, Aggarwal told the media that the committee is on a two-day visit from May 17. He said many complaints were received about big hospitals not treating the poor properly and also charging them. Aggarwal said: "After inspection, it seems that these hospitals were not treating patients from Below Poverty Line category or Economically Weaker Sections in sufficient numbers."

Palwal MLA Karan Singh Dalal said foreigners and the rich were being treated in these private hospitals in the name of health services while poor families were being ignored. Aggarwal said the committee has sought a record from these hospitals of having treated patients from poor families, adding the committee will decide on further action after analysing the record.

Earlier, during a meeting of the committee, Gurugram Civil Surgeon B.K. Rajaura said when the state government allotted land to these hospitals on subsidised rates, an agreement was reached that 20 per cent of the patients coming to the OPD of the hospitals will be provided free treatment. The agreement was also to treat 10 per cent of the admitted patients free of cost.