Howrah: Governments should pay private hospitals the "full cost" of treating the poor and in time so they can treat more such patients and yet remain viable, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the chairperson and managing director of biotechnology company Biocon, said on Saturday.

The assertion comes at a time many hospitals are alleging that they are under financial stress because of price caps and subsidised treatment forced on them by the state and central governments.

"Hospitals (private) often do a lot of corporate social responsibility by not turning away poor patients... often hospitals are not even paid the cost of treatment. The government should pay the hospital the full cost and pay it in time," Shaw said at the inauguration of a linear accelerator machine at the Narayana Superspeciality Hospital on Andul Road in Howrah. The machine is used for radiotherapy.

Cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty, who started his career in Calcutta and was present at Saturday's event, said private hospitals had an obligation to treat the poor but added that to "take care of the poor, they (private hospitals) have to take care of the rich."

Shetty is chairman and executive director of Narayana Health, which runs the hospital. Shaw is a non-executive director of the group.

Metro has recently reported that several private hospitals in Calcutta have told most of their doctors that they would no longer be paid a salary and would instead get a "fee for service" based on the number of patients they treat.

Sources in a number of private hospitals say 40 per cent of their patients are covered by state and central government health schemes, which have fixed rates for each treatment procedure.

Shetty pointed out that the "root cause" of most problems in India's health-care delivery is the lack of enough specialists. "There are 650 diabetologists in India while there are 60 million diabetic patients," he said at an interaction with reporters.

"Medical education needs to be opened up so that more people can do diploma in specialised areas."

He said around 70 per cent of the people could not afford a cardiac operation that cost Rs 50,000. He urged the government to intervene to help those people. "When I was a kid, government hospitals were vibrant. But very few people go there now."