Family claim they wanted to go to a govt hospital but ambulance forcefully took them to Medanta which charged them Rs 15.88 lakh
Inflated medical bills have come back to haunt Delhiites again. After parents at Fortis were in for a shock after the hospital charged them Rs 16 lakh for the treatment of their daughter,who died of dengue in the ICU, parents who admitted their seven year-old child Saurya Pratap to Medanta underwent a similar experience.
After 22 days of treatment wit no hope of improvement, the family had enough and against medical advice withdrew their child from the hospital and transferred him, barely breathing, to RML Hospital on November 20, where he died two days later on Wednesday.
The parents of the child claim that going to Medanta was not even their choice. On October 30, the child was brought via ambulance from Gwalior to Gurugram and here the father Gopendra Singh, an insurance agent, claims that they took them to Medanta despite their protests.
"I wanted to admit my child to Sir Gangaram Hospital but the ambulance man insisted on taking my child to Medanta, as they said the treatment would be better there. Having no choice, we agreed," Singh said.
After this the child was admitted on October 30 into the ICU there. And though the family claimed that the doctor gave them and their child a lot of attention, they said that they were unclear about the line of treatment that was being followed.
"The doctors continued to do tests and talk to us in English which we were unable to follow. We were constantly assured by them that our child would get better but after three weeks when we saw no improvement, we decided to shift him," Singh added.
There was another reason for the shift. The family, which had mortgaged their house and borrowed money from relatives, felt that after a bill of Rs 10 lakh they could not afford the hospital's care. So they took the child, who had trouble breathing — doctors at Medanta claim that he was on the verge of death — to RML where he died.
The family claim that the hospital kept them there with false promises, saying that they would reduce the amount of the final bill. But in the final bill there was only a discount of Rs 20,000.
In a tweet, the hospital stated. "Our bills are absolutely transparent, anyone can come and check them." However, doctors at the hospital have refused to comment on the matter.
Medical experts say that the problem is not in legalisation but in political will. In 2010, the Clinical Establishments Act was set up and measures were put in place to rationalise hospital bills but so far little has happened with only seven states and six union territories having implemented it so far.
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