The family members of the patient had later lodged a complaint with the Commission. (Representational)
A patient, who had tested positive for coronavirus, tried to jump from the fourth floor of Calcutta Medical College on Saturday morning. However, a hospital staff spotted him breaking the glass pane of a window with an oxygen cylinder and stopped him from taking the extreme step.
A resident of North 24 Pargana’s Ashoknagar, the patient was earlier admitted to a private hospital in Alipore area with pneumonia. Later, during the course of treatment he was found to be Covid positive.
“Initially, the authorities of the Alipore hospital told him that his condition was not good and needed to be kept under observation in the ICU.
The hospital charged him Rs 1.5 lakh for one day. Due to the exorbitant bill, he was shifted to Calcutta Medical College. He appeared to be stressed over the private hospital bill,” said Nirmal Majhi, chairman of Rogi Kalyan Samiti.
Sources said the Samiti had received a written complaint regarding this matter and would initiate a probe into the bill.
The West Bengal government had earlier urged private Covid-19 hospitals not to put the entire burden of additional expenses of treatment on patients, but to bear a part of it keeping in mind the current economic slowdown.
The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission had also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on an Anandapur hospital, which had allegedly charged a non-Covid patient for PPEs.
The family members of the patient had later lodged a complaint with the Commission. After going through the details, the Commission had asked the hospital to return the amount to the patient.
In another incident, the Commission had instructed a private hospital in Belghoria to return Rs 6,000 out of the total Rs 10,000 collected by the hospital as PPE charges from a Covid-infected patient. The Commission has received a number of complaints from patients and their family members related to overcharges under the heads of PPE kits and other expenses.