In yet another example of usurious billing by hospitals during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Gleneagles Global Hospitals (Global Hospital) in Mumbai has presented a Rs17.62 lakh bill to a retired constable’s family after his death. What is even more stunning is that his COVID test was negative, and yet the same is mentioned as reason in his death certificate issued by the hospital.
Ashok Ghadge retired as a constable from Maharashtra Police. He was admitted to Global Hospital on the 19th May and was constantly in touch with his family till 31st May through video calls. A few days after the admission, the hospital forbade his family members from visiting him, says his daughter Priyanka.
According to Priyanka, during the second week of May her father had mild temperature with fatigue for two or three days. He went to his regular doctor, who gave him some medicines but found no symptoms to indicate COVID-19 infection. So, he advised Mr Ghadge some rest.
“My father had high blood pressure and had undergone angioplasty at Bombay Hospital. He was fit despite the two stents in him. After meeting our regular doctor, we consulted the heart specialist, who advised some test, which, gave no worrying signals,” she says.
But her father continued to feel unwell and was advised to seek admission into a hospital. Since Global Hospital was close by, the family decided to admit him there, she says. The family is dissatisfied about the time taken for various tests and alleges that test reports were not shared with them. In fact, she says, they finally obtained the test report from the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as the labs are directed to share reports, especially Covid positive reports, with the civic body only.
“Even though my father’s COVID-19 test was negative, we were not allowed to visit the hospital to meet him. After several requests, we were allowed to speak with my father over a video call,” she alleges.
The family even tried to get Global Hospital to discharge the patient after a second swab test, but this did not happen. Incidentally, the government’s changing rules that have made it very difficult to get a second COVID-19 test may have added to the problem.
The family claims that they were in touch with Mr Ghadge through video calls and he seemed fine until 31st May, despite complaints about heat and lack of a ceiling fan. Things suddenly changed after that Priyanka says. "Suddenly, we received a call later that night from the hospital that they were going to perform intubation on my father in the morning. They also said, that my father was not cooperating and was refusing to sleep on his stomach. The next day, he was put on a ventilator," she says.
The family has some serious charges about how Mr Ghadge was treated once on the ventilator and the sequence of events leading up to his eventual demise. We are not repeating the charges, since they need to be corroborated by medical experts. Finally, they were told that Mr Ghadge had expired on 4th June. However, the ordeal of the Ghadge family was far from over.
Global Hospital handed them a net bill (after service discount!) for Rs17.62 lakh for over 17 days of hospitalisation. Mr Ghadge had an insurance cover, so ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co paid Rs6 lakh, the total amount that he was insured for, and the Ghadge family shelled out Rs5.49 lakh. The balance is still pending.
A detailed examination of the shockingly high bill shows the various ways the hospital tried to extract money from the patient. For example, on 18th May, when Mr Ghadge was admitted, the bill shows use of 300 examination disposable gloves costing Rs2,850. On the same day, there is again one more entry for 200 examination disposable gloves charged at Rs1,900. What type of examination could have been performed by the Hospital that required 500 disposable gloves in a day?
Similarly, on 20th May, there are two different entries for personal protection equipment (PPE) kits in the bill. In one entry, he is billed for one PPE at Rs1,500, while the other entry mentions five PPE kits at Rs7,500. Similar entries are there for next day as well.
On 22nd May, Mr Ghadge was billed for four PPE suits with one costing Rs999 (again from Jasmine Enterprises with batch number 6210 and expiry date of 31 May 2024) and others at Rs1,500 each.
One more entry for PPE comes on 30th May for five kits priced at Rs866.25 per PPE, costing a total of Rs4,331.25.
The billing for PPEs is a sore issue with all patients. While in this case, the cost of the PPE seems reasonable, health care workers (HCW) wear the same PPE to examine multiple patients and the costs need to be apportioned across them. Also, while the state government claims to have capped costs of various procedures, the cost of PPEs, and masks has been kept outside these caps and has become a source of over-billing.
We have published another bad experience with Global Hospital, as experienced by Mr Kiran Karalkar, where he claimed that staff did not change gloves while administering medicine. (
Read: COVID-19: The Cure Is Worse than the Ailment)
We have sent messages to Dr Jigna Joisher-Shrotriya, associate general manager at Global Hospital, seeking their views or comment on the Rs17.61 lakh billing of Mr Ghadge. We also asked her about multiplicity of some items in the bill. The messages sent on WhatsApp show two blue ticks indicating that she had received and read it. However, till writing this story, we have not received any reply from her or from Global Hospital. We will incorporate their reply as and when we receive it.
A goosebumps and tears sheds out when those times recalls.
I’m praying and waiting for that one fine day when I would be exposing these crimes for good.
Government should really look in to this personally. One government Survent who gave their entire life to the country Being honest officer .after retiring his job , do he deserve this kind of behaviour? Now when Mr Ghadge is no more and there is no sources of income , how the family will survive ? After paying such a big bill still u can’t saved a person, then I dnt trust any doctor for now .
It’s really heart breaking to imagine also that uncle is no more , every night I think and sleep that i wish it was bad dream and in the morning I wake up with the news that he is still alive . It was my really bad luck that i couldn’t talk to him for the last time
I hope this will bring us awareness to our society that how the world became such a ruthless . Let’s share this and try to give justice to Ghadge family by reporting global hospital
The authorities should investigate how this sort of scams continue. People should also avoid using its services.
After discharge within 2 days only we again admitted him in masina hospital Byculla where within 7 days he was fine with bill around 3 lakhs approximately.
Even from clerk to higher management I can say 90 percent people working therein doesn’t have manners how to talk to patient as well as with the relatives. They only treat patient as their asset and get maximum utilisation out of that asset, they really doesn’t bother about the health of patient , in that case also they will think about how to make money out it. Global hospital need to understand that we think hospital as safe place wherein we think that doctors are god for us but this hospital has made so bad reputation about themselves with their such behaviour and they have to understand ther are spoiling whole Hospital industry.
Most people do not have money to pay for the cost of litigation while the hospitals have enormous sums at their disposal. A law firm reviews the entire case and assesses the chances of success and based on that charge no fee upfront but collect when the judgement is delivered.
This means that the law firm makes an agreement with the plaintiffs to be paid a percentage of the judgement that is delivered in favor of the plaintiff. In the US, plaintiffs can ask for an astronomical sum for "emotional harm" in addition to all the other charges like their lawyer's fees etc. and this is where the law firms make a handsome profit.
There are many bad things about the American health system like greed but there are good things also like a doctor/hospital is not considered a "God" and above questions. He/She is expected to provide answers to questions and if answers are not forthcoming then there are legal consequences.
American health system used to be as arrogant as in India and one of the major factors to have brought greater accountability is the threat of a lawsuit.
They can earn money later also but this is not a time.
It is high time that government should be very serious to curb the malpractices of these corporate hospitals.