Private hospitals and profiteering
Doctors working in private hospitals work under severe pressure from the management for whom nothing else matters except profit–profit with a capital P.
True, the owners have invested a huge amount of money to set up these hospitals and they have to recover the money. ‘They aren’t doing any charity’, a city-based cardiologist once said. But, in reality, what we see is mindless profiteering without any social responsibility.
They are ruthless mercenaries determined to loot money using every possible unscrupulous ways and unfair means.
As soon as a consultant is appointed to a private hospital, he or she is given a target which means the doctor has to get certain number of patients or close to that number. If the doctor fails to meet the target, he would be chucked out.
Working under such a system, a doctor is always under pressure. He knows his job will be on the line, if he doesn’t meet the target. So, to save his job, the doctor has no other option but to resort to malpractices.
It has been alleged that a city-based private hospital has struck a deal with a government hospital in the city. Moribund patients from that government-run hospital are allegedly shifted to the private hospital.
Patients are put on life-support system even though the doctor in charge of the Emergency Department knows very well that the patients will die within 10 to 12 hours, it has been alleged.
Inhuman!
It has been alleged a ‘well-known cardiologist’ in a city private hospital asked his student doing MD in Bardhaman to get patients. The deal is for every patient requiring angioplasty, the student will get Rs 10,000.
What happened later is shocking! The student told his ‘Sir’ about a patient who needed angioplasty. When the ‘Sir’ told his student that the patient must shell out Rs 1.5 lakh for stent implant, the student pleaded it would be very difficult for the patient to arrange the fund.
However, the patient’s family members did finally arrange that amount with much difficulty. After the angioplasty was done, the patient was handed a bill of Rs 1.8 lakh (Rs 30,000 more than what the ‘Sir’ told him). The student, who does private practice in spare time, was stunned to hear this.
For him, it’s a huge loss of face as he had told his patient’s family that the angioplasty would cost Rs 1.5 lakh. The patient’s family had really a tough time to arrange for the money.
The student said he decided that he would forgo his ‘commission’ of Rs 10,000 and would ask his ‘Sir’ to bail him out or else his practice will suffer in Bardhaman. One can well understand the predicament of the student-doctor!
Numerous instances are there about how the hospital authorities are fleecing ordinary people. A patient, for instance, was admitted to a private hospital in Kolkata. When she was discharged from the hospital, her family members, much to their surprise, found that they were handed an inflated bill.
It has been alleged the hospital had charged Rs 960 for four days for physiotherapy even though no physiotherapy was done. Besides, even though the doctor under whom she was admitted didn’t turn up on Saturday and Sunday, the patient was charged with the doctor’s fees for the two days.
In a heavily privatized and under-regulated market, exorbitant medical bills are pushing millions to poverty, thereby depleting patients’ life savings. In India, out-of-pocket (OOP) spending constitutes over 90% of total health expenditure, heavily impacting vulnerable households. A OOP burden implies a direct financial costs a household pays for medical care such as doctor visits, drugs and diagnostic tests—that are not reimbursed by health insurance.
India ranks among the highest in Southeast Asia for OOP health expenditures, with over 39 million residents pushed into poverty annually due to inflated and fake medical bills.
My question is: profit-making is okay, but profiteering isn’t.
Are the private hospital owners listening?
