Hospital refunds Rs 1.6 lakh to ‘Cheated’ COVID Patient

A day after images of an exorbitant bill slapped on a Coronavirus patient in Ranchi went viral on social media, the private hospital where he was admitted refunded the entire sum of Rs 1.6 lakh charged to him after the intervention of Health Minister Banna Gupta & the Ranchi district administration on Monday.

The relatives of Arvind Kumar Singh paid Rs 1.6 lakh to Dwarika Hospital & Research Centre on Sunday after he was admitted to the facility for less than 3 days. Of this amount, Rs 1 lakh was billed to him for just 19 hours stay at the hospital’s ICU.

The incident came to light after JMM’s Jama MLA Sita Soren tweeted a copy of the hospital bill. CM Hemant Soren took cognizance of the issue & directed Gupta to get it investigated & take stringent action against any such ‘loot’.

On the directions from Gupta, the Ranchi district administration contacted the patient’s family & a team led by Namkum CO was sent to conduct a probe on Monday. Talking to TOI, Ranchi SDM Utkarsh Gupta said: “The patient’s family said that they were charged exorbitantly by the hospital. As they did not want to file an FIR, the treatment charges were refunded to them.”

When the news agency contacted relatives of other Covid patients’ at the hospital, they too said charged way more than the government-approved limits. In another incident the same hospital slapped a bill of over Rs 3 lakh to a Covid-19 positive patient who was admitted on Saturday.

“My brother was admitted to the hospital on Sunday morning with breathlessness & was on oxygen support. The hospital asked us to bring oxygen, which is required for seamless oxygen support as they did not had one. We provided them with that too. As we were not satisfied with the services, we decided to shift our patient & they charged us Rs 75,000 for a just six hours of oxygen-supported bed & other material,” said one.

When asked what the administration would do about such complaints from the same hospital, the Ranchi SDM said: “We will probe all such matters and, if required, patients will be refunded. Having said that, I urge all private hospitals to adhere to the price capping done by state government & help us in our fight against the virus.”

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