Identify pvt hosp staff who denied treatment under Swasthya Scheme: Regulatory body tells deceased's kin

kolkata: The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission (WBCERC) while hearing a case on Wednesday urged the family members of a patient who died after allegedly being denied treatment under Swasthya Sathi card by three private hospitals, to visit these hospitals and identify the staff members with whom they had conversed way back in July.

The commission will hear revised responses from the hospitals if the deceased's relatives can identify the persons who had spoken to the patients' relatives when the patient was brought to the hospital for treatment and eventually not admitted.

The family members of the deceased told the Commission that the three private hospitals ~ Narayana Superspeciality Howarh, KPC Medical College and AMRI Dhakuria did not admit the patient under the Swasthya Sathi scheme.

The private hospital authorities told the WBCERC that they did not refuse to admit patients under the Swasthya Sathi scheme. As the incident occurred in July they do not have any CCTV footage with them. One Debakar Chakraborty whose patient was not given treatment under the Swasthya Sathi told the Commission that Narayana Superspecialty had said that treatment could not be given treatment under Swasthya Sathi scheme.

KPC Medical College told them that the patient required neurological care and the neurologist of the hospital had already left the hospital. Hence they would not be able to admit the patient. When the patient was taken to AMRI Dhakuria, they were told treatment could not be given under the Swasthya Sathi scheme. All the private hospitals refused the charges.

In another development, the WBCERC said that AMRI Hospital in Dhakuria will have to pay a fine as it performed a CT scan of the brain on a patient who had suffered brain injuries 30 hours after the doctor had recommended. Questions were raised as to why the delay took place to perform the CT scan of the brain.

The Commission has also directed the complainant to visit in person the office of the WBCERC and pay Rs 100 as fine as he raised questions on the functioning of the Commission. The hospital will have to pay the fine after the complainant visits the commission's office.