It pains me that even during a pandemic of this scale & severity, private hospitals are allowed to get away with fleecing people who come to...

DMK president M.K. Stalin expressed profound anguish over the predatory pricing practices of private healthcare establishments that continued to fleece vulnerable citizens seeking treatment for coronavirus infections. Stalin highlighted that the Supreme Court of India had categorically observed that private hospitals, having received heavily subsidized land, tax exemptions, and institutional concessions from governments, bear a binding moral and legal duty to offer affordable medical care during public health disasters.

Stalin censured the Tamil Nadu administration for failing to curb predatory hospital billing, allowing corporate healthcare chains to exploit terrified families facing life-threatening contagion. When families are already grappling with lost livelihoods and economic destruction, permitting private hospitals to levy astronomical fees for basic isolation beds and oxygen support is an unconscionable betrayal of governance.

Stalin demanded that the state government immediately establish an effective regulatory authority to monitor hospital tariffs, penalize predatory establishments, and mandate free or concessional treatment quotas for underprivileged patients. He reiterated that healthcare institutions operating on subsidized public resources must serve the public good rather than maximizing corporate revenue while human lives hang perilously in the balance.