| Address: | Kolkata, West Bengal |
This is to bring to your notice that I had admitted my mother Pratima Mukherjee to Apollo Gleneagles Hospital on 25.11.2017 as she was suffering from serious physiological difficulties regarding speech deformities and other subsequent symptoms. In this regard this is to further inform you that she was admitted in this hospital earlier in the same month (from 31.10.17 to 04.11.17) (AGHLIP61935) and as well as she was undergoing treatment under Dr. Tridib Chowdhury (Neurologist) in the OPD (UHID: AGHL.[protected]) during the last few years. But, during discharge on 30.11.17, after critically examining the bills I had found some serious anomalies and inconsequent facts which are very much incompatible to the morality and ethics of any institution basically which are involved in a profession dealt with human health. There are several incidents happened in the last few months in this hospital regarding some illogical and inequity claims. But, I think the Hospital Management isn’t in a position to accept any change to their attitude regarding claiming of such unethical and amoral bill amounts from the helpless, stressed patient parties. I do hereby mentioning few such facts and observations found in my mother’s bills which are as follows-
A) Section : Consultation
1. It is mentioned in the bill that room rent (standard) for 5 days @ Rs. 3000/- per day is Rs. 15, 000/-. But, actually it isn’t the room rent, it is the rent of a single bed only inclusive of the food charge and monitoring of some simple physical parameters like BP, pulse etc. Even an attendant’s service was not provided with this bed charge which is most surprising!
2. I couldn’t understand what is “Assistant Doctor’s fee”? Is it not the minimum responsibility of such a super specialty hospital to provide a general medical officer’s service within its bed charge? (Whether Rs. 3000/- per day for a standard bed without having any special support is not enough to include such an obligatory service?)
3. Except Dr. Tridib Chowdhury no other specialist doctor visited and examined my mother during her course of hospitalization. But, it was quite unfortunate to notice that the fees of Dr. Sanjay Chatterjee had been included in the bill for his visit on 27.11.2017 at 10.00 a.m.
I strongly belief that this fact is very much unlawful on behalf of the hospital authority which should be taken care of following proper investigation in this regard.
B) Section: Investigation
1. The charge for CT Scan Brain claimed by your hospital is Rs. 4, 810/- which was done on 25.11.2017. But, the same CT Scan Brain was charged for Rs. 2, 790/- on 31.10.2017 when my mother was admitted here for the first time.
I’m quite astonished to find such a huge difference in the amount for a single test only within a period of just 24 days!
2. The charges for majority of the tests were also very much abnormal; the best laboratories in Kolkata have almost half or even 1/3rd of the charge claimed by your hospital. For eg. TSH (Rs. 2, 560/-), LFT (Rs.-3, 030/-), Urine Routine + Culture (Rs. 2100/-), ECG (Rs. 820/-) and so on.
Claiming such amount of money for these simple tests are nothing but a forced loot on behalf of the authority simply by taking the opportunity of hospitalization.
3. I couldn’t understand what is “Medical Records” fee for which Rs. 600/- was billed.
C) Section: Ward Pharmacy
1. This section of your bill is also full of mysterious entities. It has been found that total ward pharmacy bill amount is Rs. 8173.86, of which Rs. 3639.66 is the cost of medicine and the rest i.e. Rs. 4534.20 is the cost towards different auxiliary items. After observing the bills thoroughly, it is quite clear that most of these items were included with a simple intension to raise the bill amount by any way.
It is very much indecent to note that a patient without undergoing any surgery or any typical life support system rather, just accompanying simple conservative mode of treatment for just 5 days was billed with almost 55.5% of the total pharmacy bill with such accessories.
And lastly, I have also complain regarding your Insurance section, which I think is not much competent in handling different issues enquired from the concerned TPA authority. Most of the times they practically bypass or hand over the responsibility of solving such problems over the patient party.
Therefore, under the present situation I seek your kind intervention regarding the issues raised through my letter and hopefully you should look into the matter with due responsibility and care to satisfy my grievance with proper justice.
Attachments: Bills (25.11.17-30.11.17), Bill of CT Scan Brain (31.10.17)
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