Pune: PMC issues notices to Jehangir Hospital for exorbitant bill, Jupiter Hospital for negligence
Shikha Chaurasia
Pune, 16 July 2020: There have been many cases of private hospitals charging an exorbitant amount of fees for treating COVID-19 patients. Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has served notices to private hospitals for not following government regulations.
In a recent development, PMC has sent notices to two private hospitals – Jehangir Hospital and Jupiter Hospital. The civic body had received complaints about the hospitals charging an exorbitant amount of money for treating COVID-19 patients and another private hospital had refused to admit a COVID-19 positive patient who succumbed to the infection later. As many as 25 private hospitals have received notices from PMC on charges of not updating their status on the availability of beds and the number of occupied beds.
Additional Municipal Commissioner of PMC Rubal Agarwal said, “As soon as we received complaints against Jehangir hospital for charging an exorbitant amount of money for treating COVID-19 patients, we sent a notice to the hospital asking for clarification.”
She added further, “We have also sent a notice to Jupiter hospital for refusing to admit a COVID-19 positive patient and a clarification has been sought from them. We found that 25 private hospitals had not updated their dashboards on vacancy and number of occupied beds. We sent them notices for not complying with government regulations.”
Saurabh Rao, Officer on Special Duty at Pune Divisional Commissioner’s Office said that approximately five officers at the deputy-collector level will be deployed to oversee the management of COVID-19 patients with special focus on the bills of patients and the availability of beds. He also urged private hospitals with two building to convert one building into a COVID-19 ward.
