Four senior doctors, other staff at Apollo could be arrested

Four senior doctors and some staff of Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, a unit of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, may soon be arrested by the police.

The investigation is ongoing and some senior doctors and staff were called in this connection to Phoolbagan police station time and again in last few days.

The three-member committee set up to fix accountability in the death of a patient Sanjay Roy at the hospital submitted its findings to the state Health department on Friday.

It was learnt that the panel may pull up four senior doctors and some administrative staffs. The Phoolbagan Police Station would soon arrest those accused after completion of their primary investigation.

However, the trade license of the hospital would remain intact.

According to a state government source, the government would punish the accused doctors and administrative staff for dereliction of duty when Roy had been admitted to the hospital.

It may be mentioned that there was a meeting of senior officials of the Health department, including the additional chief secretary (Health) R S Shukla and chief secretary Basudeb Banerjee, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the State Secretariat.

The source said that they probably discussed this issue, along with some other Health department related issues.

However, apart from the medical negligence, the probe committee believes that fake documents were prepared by the hospital to get extra money from the patient.

Such misdeeds seem to have increased the bill amount of Sanjay's treatment to Rs 7.23 lakh.

They took a fixed deposit certificate and house deeds to ensure early disbursement of money from the patient party.

Kolkata Police have started a criminal case against Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, for alleged extortion.

Moreover, the Bengal government cracked the whip on private healthcare facilities, ahead of the implementation of the recently passed Clinical Establishments Act.

There are clear instruction from the Chief Minister – who is also in-charge of the Health department – that Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, which is one of the biggest private healthcare facilities in Kolkata, should face "full consequences for lapses and malpractices."

However, the government has no intension to cancel the hospital's trade licence, the source revealed.

The case was initiated after the wife of Sanjay Roy – a road accident victim at Hooghly, who died last month after being taken to Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals – filed a complaint with the police saying that the hospital authorities forced her to submit fixed deposit certificates to get him released because she could not instantly pay up.