Member of Parliament Kartikeya Sharma on Thursday once again raised the issue of patients’ rights in Rajya Sabha. Drawing several instances he, during the zero hour, mentioned that hospitals cannot keep patient’s body even if bill is not paid. The issue of overcharging of hospital bills also came up during the mention.
Drawing instances of how hospitals have been violating the existing laws and Charter of Patients, Kartikeya Sharma told the Rajya Sabha, a private hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar was not ready to discharge a woman patient after her delivery, in November 2020. “The patient’s family approached the police about releasing the patient from the hospital,” the MP added.
Kartikeya Sharma also said that in another incident, a patient was kept as a captive in the Apollo Spectra hospital in Delhi for non-payment of hospital bills. “Seizing dead bodies has been reported in Madhya Pradesh, where doctors at Devanta Hospital refused to allow the deceased body to be given to relatives because they did not have enough money to pay the hospital bills,” the MP said.
He mentioned that similar kinds of cases were emerging from other parts of the country. “In some cases, patients are tied to the hospital bed for non-payment of bills, and doctors neglect such patients and don’t take care of their health because the patients’ relatives have not cleared the bill,” the young MP asserted.
Making a point that the Constitution and the legal bodies have given the patients and their families some specific rights. However, hospital’s arbitrariness has been creating havoc. “Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees the fundamental right to life and personal liberty. Although the Indian Constitution doesn’t recognise Right to Health as a fundamental right under Part III.”
Kartikeya Sharma added, “The Right to Health is part of living with dignity. It is the duty of the state to implement Article 39 (e), 41, and 43 of the Directive Principles of State Policy so that people can make informed decisions regarding their health.”
He further mentioned, “The Delhi High Court ruled in 2016 that hospitals have no right to keep a patient even if hospital bills are not paid. The Delhi HC gave this verdict in Devesh Singh Chauhan vs. State and Other Cases.”
“Along with this, it is also unambiguously mentioned in the Charter of Patient Rights prepared by the NHRC that the patient has the right to be discharged, and cannot be held by the authority of the hospital under any circumstances.”
Kartikeya Sharma raised another prominent question: “The high charges by private hospitals for different tests. The government hospital charge for a CT scan is only 800 to 1000 rupees, while private hospitals like Apollo, Max, and Fortis have been charging more than 15000 rupees for the same.”
“The common people have been suffering due to the overcharging by private hospitals. In a case, a girl was admitted to Fortis Hospital, Gurugram. She was admitted for 15 days and was charged Rs 18 lakh by the hospital. In a similar case at BL Kapoor Hospital, Delhi, a woman’s treatment bill reached one crore twenty lakh rupees. The licence of Sri Devi Hospital in Mumbai was cancelled due to overcharging.”
The report of the Competition Commission of India in 2021 states that the charges of noted Delhi hospitals such as Fortis, Max, Apollo, Sir Gangaram, St. Stephen, and so on are very high.
Emphasising on a law, Kartikeya Sharma said, “The government should make a law on the overcharging of hospitals. If any hospital goes for overcharging, then a complaint must be registered against such a hospital after a probe. If the complaint is genuine, then the hospital’s licence can be cancelled.”
In the end, Kartikeya Sharma requested the government to pay immediate attention to the above two issues and make the general public aware of their basic rights, particularly those related to healthcare, so that people could be saved from being exploited by the private hospitals.
