Haryana government is all set to lodge an FIR against Fortis Hospital Gurugram for alleged irregularities in the case where a seven-year-old girl died of dengue and the parents were handed a Rs 15 lakh bill.
“In simple words, it was not a death, it was a murder,” Haryana health minister Anil Vij alleged. There were many irregularities, unethical practices and the protocol for diagnosis and medical duties was not followed, Vij, flanked by the members of the probe committee, alleged. The Haryana health department will file an FIR against the private hospital while the license of its blood bank will also be cancelled, he said. Its land lease may also be looked into, he added.
The hospital made a hefty profit on medicines given, which works out to 108 per cent and for some consumables it was
as high as 1,737 per cent, he claimed adding that costly medicines were used when cheaper substitutes were available. Just before Aadya Singh, who had suffered more than 70% brain damage was taken off the ventilator after two weeks of hospitalisation, her father was billed Rs 1559322, including the price of 611 syringes – the figure would mean Aadya was given 43 injections every day – and 1546 pair of gloves. The massive accumulation of fluid in her body meant that Aadya would not fit into the clothes that she had come to the hospital in. Also included in the bill is Rs 900 as the cost of the hospital gown the little girl wore when she was taken out of Fortis to a different hospital where they would issue her a death certificate.
Vij said that the hospital also overcharged for platelets. Platelets were given on 25 occasions, out of which Rs
400 per unit was charged on 17 occasions while eight times Rs 2,000 per unit was charged, Vij claimed. “The death of the girl happened due to not following the LAMA protocol, which is the Leave Against Medical Advice. The
girl was on a ventilator, but she was put in an ordinary ambulance, ventilator was withdrawn and an ambu bag was not
provided in that, which became the cause of her death, which is a very serious irregularity,” the minister said.
He said that the IMA protocol says that if a patient is discharged against medical advice, then proper arrangements
should be made to transfer him or her to another hospital. This can be done by the hospital or it can advise the kin
of the patient to do so, but the ambulance in which she was taken did not have the required facilities, he alleged
releasing the contents of the inquiry report. Fortis had earlier said that all medical protocol had been followed in the case and all consumables are transparently reflected in records and charged as per actuals.
