On August 12, 2004, the Odisha Cabinet decided to give land to one Dr PC Rath to put up a multispecialty hospital which would make complex and expensive treatment easy and affordable.
This physician floated a company, Asian Super Specialty Hospital and Research Institute. The Cabinet approved 3.5 acres of unthinkably prime land at Samantapuri on the Acharya Vihar-Sainik School avenue for a 80 per cent subsidised price of `7 lakh an acre.
The Cabinet also made a condition that in case the doctor did not start construction by August 11, 2005, the land would be resumed automatically. The price fixed was a singing `7 lakh per acre when the going market price was at least `10 million for the same.
Dr Rath grabbed the land and disappeared into thin air. No one talked about the missing doctor or the super hospital not coming up in one year.
A couple of years later, the big Apollo Hospital group appeared on the scene and got 4 acres just adjacent to the messiah doctor’s plot for `35 lakh an acre in 2006.
The condition placed with the corporate group was that 10 per cent indoor patients and 25 per cent outpatients would get complete free treatment, the same as fixed for Dr PC Rath’s outfit. Indoor patients thus remain entitled to free consultancy, diagnostics, all procedures including surgery and beds with all meals.
Outpatients are entitled to free consultancy, diagnostics and medicines only without bed and meals. Apollo readily agreed to all the conditions and started work immediately.
The huge hospital came up fast and the operations launched in time. No matter how much the hospital makes the patient’s family bleed, it remains the most credible place for treatment.
A former top cop of Andhra Pradesh once quipped, “Apollo cures the patients and murders the rest of the family members. By the time the patient is fit to return home, the family would have sold all property, jewellery, cattle and personal belongings to gather money to clear the astronomical bills”.
The operations chief is retired lieutenant General Parmar. He comes once in a while to ensure doctors attract patients to go in for all tests to generate easy money so that their salary remains fairly decent. On being asked, the General said, “I have never asked any doctor to do that.” Apollo doctors are reportedly under perpetual pressure to generate business.
The hospital has a sprawling 3.5 acres of open space used for car parking. People come charging during stressful departure to rob 20 rupees per car. The Kalinga Hospital, in which the State of Odisha has sizeable stakes, could never get any out-of-turn benefit.
The Government did not grant any advantage to it by warding off high-charging other corporate hospitals. Kalinga is dying today to rise like a phoenix tomorrow to die again the day after.
Apollo had the advantage of taking many good doctors from Kalinga with a much higher pay package. Kalinga is not likely to get back to good health ever again unless miracles happen.
Along with Apollo, nine other hospitals too got caught and were forced to extend free treatment as promised.
People have now come to know that at least 44 doctors have availed State property to put up healthcare facilities. Thirteen of them never came up with one.
The Revenue Minister’s wife Doctor Jyoti Routray, MBBS, too had availed a prime location plot to set up a nursing home at Kharavel Nagar way back in 1985. That is now the private residence of the Minister, Bijayshree Royray, who says the nursing home incurred huge losses due to competition from renowned doctors and they had to convert it to a sprawling private house.
But such conversion is not permissible by law. In case the particular purpose is ignored, the land is to be resumed instantly. Most astonishingly, the promoter of Asian Super Specialty Hospital and Research Institute is still missing. No one knows what happened to that Doctor PC Rath, who was asked to start construction by the end of August 2005.
The 3.5 acres of prime land has not been resumed formally as yet. The hospital, the promoting doctor and the revenue law enforcement authorities together have gone missing from the scene since August 2005. The messiah doctor is suspected to have clandestinely passed on the huge lease plot to a corporate hospital group for a hefty financial consideration. Even if he got into a deal, the procedure cannot have happened on a ‘me-to-you’ mode.
The State resumes on record, then allots the land fresh to a new applicant. Then, the land alienation records of the Government reflect that transfer as valid and lawfully correct. The Apollo authorities are to explain about the extra land acquisition.
The hospitals’ land scams investigations have just begun. But since no one looks for the vanishing Asian Super Specialty Hospital promoted by a now-invisible Dr PC Rath, the thinking Odias are experiencing immeasurable anxiety.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)