Noida: Doctor dies after battling Covid for 21 days, row erupts over steep bill

NOIDA: Dr Sayeed Ahmad Ali was tested positive for Covid-19 on June 8, a day after he was admitted to Fortis

hospital

in Sector 62. On June 14, he was shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital and was kept on the ventilator.


At 11.30am on Sunday, Dr Ali died due to a lung collapse.

To the utter shock of his family members, the hospital handed over a

bill

of Rs 13.77 lakh. While they questioned “inflated bill”, Dr Ali’s body kept lying at the hospital for an entire day.

Dr Ali is an Unani practitioner who also worked as a business development manager in the marketing team of Yatharth hospital in the city. After his death, the family alleged that they received the bill even though his son, Mohammad Shahdab, had “discussed the issue with the financial department of the hospital on Thursday”.

Mansoor Akhtar, Dr Ali’s nephew, told TOI that Shahdab was informed that the bill amounted to Rs 9 lakh. “He found that the hospital had charged the patient normally and not as per what the hospitals are charging

Covid

patients. The finance department told them to correct the bill and they promised to do so,” he said.

“The bill included charges for ventilator, medicines, PPE kits, bed charges, etc. The cost for the medicines amounted to Rs. 6.25 lakh even as there are limited medicines used during Covid

treatment

,” he said.

Mansoor and the family members of the deceased produced the orders from neighbouring states, which have capped the expense on the different kinds of charges involved in Covid treatment.

The family said they were told that the body will be allowed to be taken home only after payment of the entire bill. “We told them that we would take it on Monday after a discussion on the bill,” he said.

Around 9.30 pm on Sunday, Shadab allegedly received a call from the hospital saying that the bill had been revised to around Rs. 10 lakh. “They took an undertaking from us that we were taking the body and the bill will be paid after mutual discussion later,” Mansoor said.

Meanwhile, Fortis hospital in a statement, said: “The patient was brought in a critical condition with high fever & acute breathing difficulties on June 7. After careful examination, he was diagnosed with Covid-19 and admitted to the isolated ICU as per norms. The treatment plan as per ICMR guidelines was immediately started... After consent from the family, the patient was intubated and mechanical ventilation was started on June 14. Despite the best attempt of our doctors and the utmost care, the patient could not be saved & he died on June 28. As per the request of the family, the body was kept at the mortuary before the family took possession on June 29. The family of the patient was informed about the treatment details at every step and were also counselled about the criticality of the patient regularly. The patient was administered best possible medical care by our critical care and pulmonology team conforming to the prevailing statutory guidelines. The bill for the patient was charged as per discounted rates based on CGHS Tariffs as per the MOU with the government. Based on this, the final bill of Rs 10.2 lakh was handed over to the family. The medical insurance cleared Rs 4 lakhs and the family has paid Rs 25,000. The rest of the amount from the final bill remains unpaid. As required, the details have been submitted to the CMO, NOIDA office... We empathise with the family in this hour of grief.”

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