Punjab Minister slams Mohali private hospital for ‘gross mismanagement’

Punjab cabinet minister Harjot Bains today criticised the “gross mismanagement” and “fleecing of patients” at the super-specialty Max Hospital in Phase 6. Bains, in a social media post, alleged that the patients were being made to wait in ambulances outside the hospital’s Emergency even as beds inside lay vacant.

“Ì will ask the Health Minister to get the bed occupancy verified,” the Education Minister warned during his visit to the hospital as other visitors nodded in agreement with his allegations.

Bains came to the hospital after a relative of a sarpanch made a distress call to him. The patient had alleged that he was made to wait outside the hospital for half an hour.

“Due to the negligence of management and their race for money, patients coming from far away were made to sit outside under the excuse of ‘file making’ instead of being admitted in the emergency — even when the emergency ward was empty,” he wrote on ‘X’.

Bains complained that an elderly woman from Hamirpur had to also wait 20–25 minutes in an ambulance. The minister added that he had to step in personally to get her, and another patient admitted to the hospital.

Sources said "credit patients" require an approval letter was from the department concerned. A hospital spokesperson added, “The 60-year-old patient, who had been admitted to our hospital multiple times, was last discharged on September 22, 2025. Today, he returned to Emergency with further complications. At that time, no ICU bed was available, and this was duly communicated. The patient was admitted to the CCU once a bed became available.”