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The step has been taken keeping in mind that most patients are unaware that charitable hospitals have to reserve 10 per cent beds and a part of their funds for needy patients. Two months

after the Charity Commissioner of the state issued a circular on writing 'charitable' to their names, only 21 out of 73 trust-run hospitals across the city have followed the order.

In July, the state Charity Commissioner, Shivkumar Dige, had made it compulsory for the 430 trust-run hospitals in Maharashtra, including 74 in Mumbai, to use the word

'charitable' in their name so that their swanky appearance does not mislead poor patients who are eligible to get subsidised or free treatment there. "We did not give any

specific deadline to implement the order, but it has been two months. We will soon be run a check on the trust-run hospitals who are yet to make the change. Most of the hospitals in the list

of 21 hospitals are undergoing a formal process of changing the name and adding 'charitable' into it," said Dighe. "Hospitals who haven't taken any step to

introduce the change will have to face legal action from the office of charity commission. We had decided to wait till October 5 for the hospitals to act on their own. We will soon start

taking actions from our side," added Dighe. Speaking about the implementation of the order in other parts of the state, Dighe, added, "Around 68 trust-run hospitals in

Maharashtra's 10 districts such as Sangli, Bhandara, Sindhudurg, Chandrapur, Solapur, Latur, Nandurbar have agreed and started the formal process of adding 'charitable' in

their name." The step has been taken keeping in mind that most patients are unaware that charitable hospitals have to reserve 10 per cent beds and a part of their funds for needy

patients. "There is very little awareness among patients, they get intimidated by the posh set-ups of hospitals. They avoid these hospitals fearing high expenditure. Thus, we had

welcomed the order by the charity commission," said Brijesh Arya, Pehchan NGO.