The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report stating that several hospitals have been enjoying tax breaks in the name of charitable service they never actually delivered shows that the healthcare system has tested positive, again, for the superbug of profiteering.
Citations from the audit report show that 10 hospitals that have not been identified under the Income Tax Act alone had together availed tax exemptions amounting to Rs77 crore, despite flouting conditions. Section 80G of the I-T Act, while exempting donations received by charitable trusts from the purview of taxation, stipulates that the receipts donors are issued should bear a reference number and date. But auditors have reported violation of norms in vast majority of cases.
No one can dispute the fact that hospitals are costly facilities to maintain — if they were to operate within the strict parameters laid down. Right from properly trained medical staff to equipment, the healthcare system is a funds gobbling behemoth that also feeds or fattens a whole host of symbionts across industries.
It is no wonder then that the healthcare system reflects a feudalistic pattern wherein the wealthy and the poor receive different qualities of service in accordance with their financial standing.
While there is nothing wrong with having facilities that match the different financial strata, there is something very wrong with the system when it feels the need to cheat in the name of charity to make a profit.
The cost of medicines is escalating with each passing day and newer physical and mental ailments — difficult to diagnose and treat — are also developing alongside. Many conditions that the masses suffer from today have resulted from the blinding greed of a few, at the expense of sustainability.
At a time when the common man is the biggest sufferer of the harm that bigwigs are responsible for causing, they are being increasingly distanced from the availability of quality healthcare.
In the absence of a robust public healthcare system or any form of social security to fall back on, the vast majority of Indian populace in the country is deprived of quality healthcare. Apart from these purely economic angles, there is another very important point to be remembered.
Rushing a patient to an expensive air-conditioned 5-star type hospital is no assurance of receiving top of the line treatment. Most of the time in India, a personal contact with a modern physician takes greater importance.
It is under such circumstances that support in the form of charity extended by bigger healthcare facilities should come as a relief, however limited it may be, for the suffering masses.
But when even that limited relief is being denied to people in the name of profits, something needs to be done. The government, which is supposed to keep its eyes and ears open to prevent any violation in such a vital sector, has missed the plot or is turning a blind eye to the issue.
Apart from tax evasion, let us not forget the tremendous amount of support that these so-called private hospitals derive from the government.
Starting from huge tracts of prime land at highly subsidized rates in the middle of urban concentrations to availing not only extreme police protection but also lapping up taxpayers’ money by cornering government health programmes as also vying to get positioned as ‘referral hospitals to large PSUs. The CAG’s report needs immediate action.
