Indore: Facing administration’s enquiry of overcharging and unnecessary billing of the patients, Apple Hospital on Saturday submitted its reply over the show cause notice served by health department.
According to sources, the hospital administration mentioned various reasons for overbilling to the patients including increased maintenance charges, increased salary to the staff working in COVID, continuous sanitization of the hospital, security to staff and others.
“In their reply, they mentioned that cost of treatment has been increased due to COVID-19 due to which they had charged more from the patients. In reply of Rs 3000 for PPE kits, they mentioned that they have to provide PPE kits to every staff member and not only to doctors. Similarly, they explained the universal protection charge as the cost of sanitization in the hospital and of the kits provided to the patients,” sources said.
However, department officials said that the response given by the hospital is not satisfactory as they failed in giving reply over various issues.
“We have received the response of hospital administration. We are scrutinizing their reply and will submit our report to the Collector and Chief Medical and Health Officer. Further course of action will be decided by senior officials,” investigation in charge Dr Amit Malakar said.
A team of administration and health department led by Dr Malakar and SDM had raided Apple Hospital on August 25 for investigating a complaint lodged by kin of Deepak Dubey before the Collector regarding over and unnecessary billing.
The team had found that hospital took unnecessary charges in the name of universal protection of Rs 3000 everyday. Similarly, took Rs 3000 in the name of PPE kits everyday and took about Rs 1,00,000 in the name of doctors’ visiting charges but the bills vary from one patient to another. Similarly, there are different bills given to the patient and provided by the hospital administration.
102 people donated blood amid COVID-19 scare
As many as 102 people donated blood for the needy patients on Saturday. The blood donation drive was organized by Shri Guruji Sewa Nyas in support of Red Cross Society. Nyas’ Dr Sanjay Londhe said that Collector Manish Singh inaugurated the blood donation camp. “Blood donation in the time of COVID-19 is a noble work as people are even fearing coming out of houses,” he added.
