Andhra Pradesh: Case filed on a hospital in Visakhapatnam for charging high fees for covid

A case has been registered against the hospital owner for charging excess fees from coronavirus patients at Golagani Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Visakhapatnam Health City.

According to Arilova CI Emanuel Raj, a three-member District Level Flying Squad has been set up by Visakhapatnam District Collector Vinay Chand to probe allegations that corporate hospitals in Health City are charging large sums of money from corona patients. The team investigated a hospital run by Kumar's Hospital Pvt Ltd in the GIMS and directly contacted the family members of several covid‌ patients and collected the details.

One of them was found to have collected about Rs 7 lakh from a patient and billed only Rs 1.20 lakh. Another family, along with evidence, explained that the body was handed over with a check for Rs 3 lakh as security due to lack of money. With that evidence, the squad visited the hospital on the 6th and 7th of this month and examined the records and bills, where were found to be irregular.

It was also found guilty of misuse of Remdesivir injections. CI Emanuel Raj said that a case has been registered and is being investigated under the Disaster Management Act following a complaint lodged by members of the Flying Squad over all these irregularities.

Meanwhile, many hospitals in the Health City are exploiting in the same way and many want the collector to focus on them as well.