It was good to read in the newspapers that the BMC and SevenHills Hospital are hoping to settle their dispute in about 2 weeks. But I would still like to write this review because as they say ‘there is much a slip between the cup and the lip’! Such statements have been made since the last couple of years only to hear that the dispute is still persisting. I’ve given below some of my observations. Some of them are my own and some are in response to the reply given by sevenhills hospital on MouthShut. 1. The hospital in no way is the ‘best in Mumbai’ nor is it ‘one of the biggest private hospitals in Asia’ as claimed in its official website. The hospital itself admits to this by stating:” Any service or any product has to be sold as the best. Kindly understand we are making one of the largest, -- The total bed strength is not being operated by us and we are ramping up depending upon the patient number. And by advertising one of the largest we feel we are not harming anybody”. That’s absolute nonsense. No one has the right to mislead the public by wrong advertisement. They may hope to be the best and the biggest but they may just be pipe dreams. 2. The hospital cribs about the amount of money it has spent. They claim to “have invested so far 1200 crores and it will take another 300 crores investment to complete the project”. But they fail to mention (even on their official website) that they are sitting on 17 acres of public (municipal) land which is worth about Rs.1000 crores.That land has been given to them on a 60 years lease on nominal terms provided it allots 20% of the beds to the poor. Where in Mumbai would anybody get 17 acres of open land to do business? And, despite this, they refuse to treat poor patients as per their commitment. At the same time, they have been generating money by treating the rich sections of society over the last 2 years. 3. The hospital claims: “We have signed a lease agreement with BMC and registered the document and we are strictly honoring what are all agreed between us and BMC”. Then why is the matter in the High Court? The answer comes from the horses mouth: “Had we started 200 bedded hospital in the then existing building in the year 2006 with an investment of 60 Crores and reserving 40 beds for BMC patients we could have honored our commitment towards BMC. But we preferred to create a healthcare landmark in India”. From the above it is clear that the hospital is clearly admitting that they have not honoured its commitment to the BMC. It is probable that their grandious plans (to satisfy their greed for fame?) backfired. Now they go (with a begging bowl) to Financial Institutions and Banks! 4. It is common knowledge that SevenHills wanted to start Nursing and Medical Colleges. These ambitions have also been stalled for the time being. It is known that most private Medical Colleges in India are money making rackets. Also, medical colleges need patients to use as teaching material. The poor patients admitted to the hospital could have been used as guinea pigs for the rich medical students who would in turn fill the coffers of the hospital! This of course is just a speculation on my part but it would have been a pretty smart move! 5. There have been recent news reports about the hospital implementing the ’’’’Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana (RGJAY) in the state” where ’’’’the government has roped in even the super-speciality hospital Seven Hills --which would offer treatment to the poor under the scheme’’’’ and ’Three hundred beds will be allotted for the people belonging to the poor sections of the society at the Seven Hills hospital”. But this appears to be a ploy. That is because the RGJAY is to be implemented by all large charitable private hospitals wherein the Govt. will reimburse the hospital for treatment costs upto Rs. 1.5 lakhs. So, the hospital parades itself as doing charitable work while in fact it is being reimbursed by the Govt.! In actual fact, the hospital has to keep aside 20% of its beds for the poor to be treated at BMC Hospital rates. The RGJAY is a seperate scheme altogether. This cannot take the place of its original agreement with the BMC. 6. The hospital boasts of its paperless system and computerisation. But the fact is that many patients have been made to wait endlessly to see doctors because of this and even patients who are admitted often have to spend several hours before treatment is started in the name of computerisation. While computerisation is important, it should not be at the expense of patient care. Moreover there is a drastic decrease in the amount of time the physician spends in interacting with the patient