There was a news item im a leading  newspaper yesterday that Delhi government is not happy that private hospitals in Delhi are not giving requisite charity to poor patients as had been agreed upon by them when land was given to them free or at highly subsidized rates. On the face of it one would tend to agree with government that if land was given free or on subsidized rates, the hospitals should give discount as per the prevailing rates at that point in time. The moot point though remains that healthcare is required for all classes of patients and hence corporate hospitals should not be forced to operate sizable number of  free beds in their infratstructure. Better would be to make them pay a cash equivalent component to government hospitals which will go a long way in enhancing the shoe string budgets of these hospitals and would become a better mechanism of cross subsidy. Corporate hospitals can even be willing to adopt primary health centres as was indicated by some CEO’s in a FICCI sponsored event. Mixing up of poor category of patients with the paying class will not be a good solution as both categories of patients themselves will not like to be mixed under the same roof for treatment.