Bengaluru: A “music night” at a hospital. Yay or nay? This was the question that divided the internet over the weekend after photographs and video clips from a music night held on the non-clinical floors of Superhealth, a hospital in Koramangala, went viral on social media.While many people criticised the decision to organise an entertainment event at a hospital as tone-deaf and insensitive, others felt the issue was being blown out of proportion.“Worst healthcare marketing I’ve ever seen! ‘It went viral’ is not a marketing strategy. Tone-deaf max, I won’t want my ageing parents going there,” said Mahalakshmi, an X user.“There are places for celebrations. A hospital, where people are fighting for their lives and families are going through some of their hardest moments, is simply not one of them. What an incredibly tone-deaf move,” said Nidhi, another social media user.Another X user, Vishan Singh Jain, said, “Hospitals are not public parks where people go for leisure walks to relax.”An invite to the event that went viral on social media showed that the hospital had titled it “HOSPITA/ITY” and specified that there would be “no alcohol, no smoking and no vapes”. Kombucha would be served, and attendees were asked to be respectful of the space. The event, the invite said, was about “reimagining hospitality”.The hospital management defended the event online, saying the music night was part of a larger effort to challenge the perception of hospitals as “cold, frightening and morose” spaces and make them warmer, more inviting and patient-friendly.Taking to X, Varun Dubey, founder and CEO of Superhealth, said, “Hospitals do not need to be scary places. We are going to keep pushing that belief.”Dubey said the event was held on the hospital’s non-clinical floors after OPD hours, with active inpatient areas kept off-limits and separated from the programme by multiple floors and sound insulation. Patients and attendants were also invited, he said, with some attending because they were bored, wanted a distraction or found hospitals lonely places on a Saturday night. He maintained that no music or event-related sound reached the patients.However, public health activists said that at a time when healthcare costs and patients’ out-of-pocket expenditure remain high, a party-like event at a hospital could strike the wrong chord.“While I appreciate the hospital’s intention of creating a welcoming atmosphere, some of the criticisms are understandable. Private hospital care inflation is said to be about three times that of general inflation. It’s the cost of care and rise of non-communicable diseases that are troubling, so it would have struck a more appropriate tone if they had organised a programme around health education and offered some free screening services, for example,” said Asha Kilaru, a public health researcher with Sarvatrika Arogya Andolana Karnataka.