Karimnagar: In the name of health tests and medicines, some hospitals and medical shops are looting hapless patients here in erstwhile Karimnagar district.
With around 1,623 patients suffering from typhoid, 174 suffering from dengue and 34 suffering from malaria, along with thousands suffering from viral fevers undergoing treatment in various hospitals in the erstwhile Karimnagar district and patients visiting from various neighbouring districts as well, private establishments are making hay while the sun shines.
Instead of rendering better medical services to patients along with providing medicines at affordable costs, some private hospitals and medical shops in the district hire registered medical practitioners (RMPs) on a commission basis asking them to refer patients to their hospitals.
The RMPs are then looting these patients in the name of medical tests and making them buy high cost medicines from assigned stores.
As soon as a patient visits a hospital suffering from an illness, the hospitals are admitting them and collecting from Rs 20,000-Rs 1 lakh from them in the name of treatment.
The hospitals are charging Rs 8-Rs 100 for one injection from the patients and to those who are suffering from dengue, they charge Rs 40 to Rs 400 for one injection. Transfusion of blood platelets costs Rs 18,000, allotment of bed Rs 5,000, medicines Rs 5,000 and technicians and medical tests around Rs 15,000, apart from the doctor's fees. People allege that some private hospital doctors are writing false reports that patients do not have sufficient quantities of platelets and suggesting that they undergo transfusion of platelets.
Some are even giving antibiotics to decrease the number of platelets, even though the platelets are present in sufficient quantities.
It is the responsibility of private hospitals to display on their notice boards the charges for providing treatment for various kinds of diseases and health complications. But no single hospital in the district is following this rule, they added.
