Aga Khan hospital admits govt allotted land for charitable cause

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court directed the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) to submit its criteria for providing free medical aid and treatment to poor and needy patients.

The directives came on Thursday while the court was hearing a petition of Dur Mohammad Shah seeking directives for the AKUH to provide free medical facilities to the needy. The petitioner had submitted that even though the land was allotted to AKUH for charitable purposes, in practice the hospital administration was charging patients higher fees than those charged by the other charitable hospitals.

Filing a counter affidavit before the SHC, the AKUH counsel submitted that the hospital is a charitable and not-for-profit entity but registered under the Companies Act. He admitted that the government of Pakistan granted 20 and 63 acres of land in two phases for the construction of a charitable hospital and medical college, while the federal and provincial governments also exempted the AKUH from property and income taxes. The counsel denied that AKUH is engaged in commercial activities, stating that it has established Pakistan’s leading charitable and not-for-profit hospital and medical college. He further said that the mere recovery of charges from patients does not change the basic character of the hospital as a charitable organisation because profits are not made for distribution among the members of AKUH, but reinvested in the hospital.

According to the counsel, the reason for charging patients is to maintain the world class standards which have made AKUH the country’s leading hospital network and to enable it to subsidise poor patients or anyone who needs such aid. He said the AKUH provided patient welfare to 708,000 patients in 2017.

The SHC division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar inquired from the counsel about the criteria for providing free medical treatment to the needy patients. The counsel then sought time to submit the relevant record regarding the rate of discount and the free treatment provided by the hospital to the poor. The counsel was given till February 14 to submit the information.