Stay on Max hospital licence cancellation extended

Appellate body extends relief to hospital till February 8

An appellate body hearing the Max hospital twin death case on Tuesday extended the stay on a Delhi government order cancelling its licence last month, authorities said.

The stay will be in effect till February 8, the next date of hearing.

In a statement, the Max Healthcare group welcomed the “relief granted to Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh”.

The order to cancel the hospital’s licence came after the birth of premature twins at the hospital on November 30 last year. Both the babies were declared stillborn by the hospital, one of them wrongly, and handed over to the family allegedly in a polythene bag.

While the family was on its way to perform the final rites, they found that the boy was still alive. The case triggered an outrage, prompting the AAP government's Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) to cancel the hospital’s licence on December 8 for alleged medical negligence.

Filed appeal

The hospital group had on December 13 filed an appeal in the Financial Commissioner's court against the cancellation of the licence, which stayed the order and set January 9 as the date of next hearing. Following the stay order, Max hospital resumed its operation on December 20.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police on Monday filed a status report on its probe into the death of the twins before a court, which has directed that the investigation be conducted expeditiously.

The police claimed to have found that in the death register of the hospital, only the time of birth of the two infants was mentioned but not the time of their death, despite both being handed over in two separate tightly wrapped packages.