Hyderabad: A private multi-speciality hospital at LB Nagar is charging Rs 200 from those intending to meet patients admitted in the intensive care unit (ICU).
This issue came to light when a social activist posted this on his Twitter account followed by the patient’s son who tagged the receipts of the payment he paid and the photographs of the notice board in front of the ICU clearly stating that Rs 200 will be charged per visitor, that is apart from the attendant, and only five passes will be issued per day from 9 am to 5 pm which are the visiting hours.
The patient’s son also stated in his Twitter post: “Hospital at LB Nagar is collecting money and playing with people’s emotions, to visit a patient in ICU we have to pay 200 rupees for less than 10 minutes and questioned the authorities is this Legal? (sic)” and tagged Twitter accounts of the GHMC and municipal minister K.T. Rama Rao.
Asked about his post, Gopal told this newspaper: “These types of practices are prevalent in most multispeciality hospitals in this city. Regulatory authorities never take any action on such issues. Soon I am going to file a criminal case against these hospitals.”
Dr K. Janardhan, medical administrator of the hospital, claimed: “This is for the safety of the patient because of too many visitors only add up to unnecessary infections. Our motto is to see that the patient is discharged as early as possible in good health. We issue free passes to the attendants after counselling every day regarding the patient’s health. The charges collected from the visitors are added to the patient’s bill.”
