The Save District Government Maternity and Children’s Hospital Committee on Saturday urged President Pranab Mukherjee not to lay the foundation stone for the BRS Health and Research Institute’s Super-Speciality Hospital here. The President is scheduled to lay the foundation stone at a function to be held at Rajangana on Sunday.
Addressing press persons on Saturday, P.V. Bhandary, convener of the Committee, said the handing over of the District Government Maternity and Children’s Hospital, also called the Haji Abdulla Maternity and Children’s Hospital, was subject to a litigation in the court of the Additional Senior Civil Judge here.
The 70-bed District Government Maternity and Children’s Hospital had been rendering good service to the poor for the last seven decades. But the State government, had on August 24, 2016, decided to allow the BRS Health and Research Institute, owned by B.R. Shetty, an NRI businessman, to construct a 200-bed maternity and children’s hospital, a 400-bed super-speciality hospital and an urban community health centre on a BOOT basis.
These proposed healthcare institutions would come up on the four acres of land in the heart of the city, where the 70-bed Government Maternity and Children’s Hospital was located.
The four acres of prime land had been donated a century ago for the hospital by the philanthropist, late Haji Abdulla Saheb, who was also the founder of Corporation Bank, in the 1900s. In his deed, Abdulla Saheb wanted the land donated by him to be used only for providing free medical treatment to the poor. “It was wrong on the part of the government to hand over a well-performing hospital to a private company and to permit it to build and operate a super-speciality hospital on a public trust land,” he said.
The State government’s MoU with BRS Health and Research Institute Pvt Ltd. was in violation of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act, 1999, as no attempt was made to get counter proposals to the BRS Institute for developing the maternity hospital, he said
“Though we sought permission to protest against the foundation stone laying ceremony, the authorities denied it citing the President’s visit. However, we will continue to oppose this matter in the coming days,” Dr. Bhandary said.
Balakrishna Shetty, secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist); K.V. Bhat, secretary of CPI; Salahuddin of Zilla Muslim Okkoota; Nityananda Volakadu of Nagarika Samiti; Yogish Shet, RTI activist; and G. Rajashekhar, writer, were present.
