`Need a legal framework to check open loot by pvt hospitals`

New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said there should be a legal framework to check "open loot" and "criminal negligence" by private hospitals, in the wake of a premature baby wrongly declared dead by a city-based private hospital.

He, however, added that the Delhi government valued the independence of private medical facilities and did not wish to interfere in their functioning.

"We value the independence of private hospitals and do not wish to interfere in their functioning, however, there ought to be a legal framework to check open loot and criminal negligence by a few black sheep," the AAP supremo said in a tweet.

On December 1, the city government had ordered an inquiry into alleged criminal negligence by Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh, after it surfaced that its doctors had declared a baby dead who was found to be alive later.

Yesterday, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said that if the hospital was found guilty of negligence, its licence could be cancelled.

The baby boy was one of the prematurely born twins (boy and girl) delivered on the morning of November 30 to Varsha at the Max Hospital. The other baby was stillborn. The mother was brought to the hospital from a nursing home in Paschim Vihar, police said.

The hospital earlier informed the parents that both the children were stillborn, and handed over the babies to them in a polythene bag. Moments before the last rites of the children, the family found that the boy was alive, police had said.