The State Government on Monday told the High Court of Karnataka that nearly 1,700 complaints had been received from the public on private hospitals, including many of prominent ones in State, collecting excess amount for treating COVID-19 patients.
The data submitted also discloses that complaints have been received on collection of amount from the patients even in several government hospitals.
Data submitted
The details, including names of hospitals against whom the complaints have been received, excess amounts allegedly collected from patients against the charges fixed by the Government for treating various categories of COVID-19 patients, were submitted to the court.
The data shows that excess amounts were collected in the range of a few thousand rupees to ₹15 lakh, depending upon the type of hospitals to which the patients were admitted.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum, which took note of the details, asked the Government to inform the court the action initiated against the hospitals for collecting excess amounts and ensuring that such amount collected were refunded to the patients. The Bench was hearing a batch of PIL petitions related to the issues that cropped up due to COVID-19.
Prominent hospitals
Multiple complaints, even up to two dozen in case of some private hospitals, were received against some single hospitals, mainly large and prominent hospitals across the State, according to the Government data.
The data also shows that either partial or full amounts collected in excess of the Government prescribed charges were refunded to the patients in around 200 complaints and the remaining complaints are pending before the district level grievance redressal committees.
On vaccination drive, the Government stated that 6,11,91,799 doses had been administered as of October 19, which included 4,08,98,337 first doses (83.6% of the target population of 4,89,16,000) and 2,02,93,462 second doses (41.5%).