Hospital Charges Rs 18 Lakh For A 15-Day Treatment, Girl Succumbs To Dengue

A seven year old dengue patient's parents were charged Rs 18 lakh for a 15 day stay at the Fortis hospital Gurugram. The little girl named Adya, however, could not survive. The 19-page long bill included charges for all the syringes, gloves and other things used in the treatment of the girl.

The Times of India reported that all this started after a Twitter post was given by a friend of the grieved family. It said, "One of my batchmate's 7 year old was in @fortis hospital for 15 days for dengue. Billed Rs 18 lakhs including for 2700 gloves. She passed away at the end of it. Corrupt a*******."

This message was retweeted 9000 times in just four days till it reached the Union health minister. Nadda tweeted back, "Please provide me details on hfwminister@gov.in. We will take all necessary action," Nadda tweeted.

Her father, Jayant Singh, paid the amount right away but accused the hospital of charging them wrongly and inflated the bill without paying much attention to his daughter's case.

However, Fortis has denied all these allegations and stated that they have followed the required medical procedure. They added that the girl had come in a critical health condition and all medical guidelines and requirements were met accordingly.

While speaking to News 18, Adya's father revealed that their stay at Fortis was hellish from the beginning. Adya was shifted to Fortis on August 31 after she was diagnosed with type IV dengue. The doctor in Dwarka had asked them to move the girl to a hospital equipped with a Paediatric ICU.

As soon as they arrived, Adya was given heavy sedation and admitted to PICU. The girl was given over 40 injections in a day and expensive variety of drugs was used on her even when the cheaper options were there.

Jayant explained that the doctors gave Adya an anti-bacterial drug known as Meropenem which is priced at Rs 500 per viral. However, later on they started using a branded and more expensive version of the same drug which costs Rs 3100 per viral. Singh ended up paying Rs 4 lakh for the drugs and Rs 2.7 lakh for items like gloves.

Even though the hospital charged so heavily, the family alleged that not much care was provided to their daughter. During the weekends, there were doctors to attend to her. After the insurance limit of the family came to an end, the hospital demanded an amount of Rs 1 lakh at the end of each day.

October 14, the parents were informed that their daughter suffered 70 to 80% brain damage and will not be able to recover completely. However, they pushed the family to go for a plasma treatment costing Rs 15 lakh, Singh alleged.

The family then decided to take their daughter to another hospital. They alleged that the hospital did not even provide the family with an ambulance for taking Adya to another hospital. Singh suspects that the hospital already knew that Adya had succumbed and were just trying to make money out of her case.

Saddened by the incident, Adya's mother revealed that they were so busy arranging for an ambulance and money for paying off the heavy bill that they could not even mourn their daughter's death. When they arrived at the Rockland hospital, Adya was declared dead.

The parents are now wondering if they should sue the hospital for this incident or take it to social media to talk about this incident.

Fortis, however, said that Adya had suffered from Dengue Shock Syndrome due to which she had to be put on a life support system 48 hours after she was brought in.

They denied any form of wrongdoing and said, "We empathise with Baby Adya's family in this difficult hour of sorrow and grief. Seven year old Baby Adya was brought in to Fortis Memorial Research Institute (Gurgaon), from another private hospital on the morning of 31st August, 2017. She was admitted with Severe Dengue which progressed to Dengue shock syndrome and was managed on IV fluids and supportive treatment as there was a progressive fall in platelet count and hemoconcentration. As her condition deteriorated, she had to be put on ventilatory support within 48 hours. The family was kept informed of the critical condition of the child and the poor prognosis in these situations. As a process, we counselled the family daily on the condition of the child. On 14th September, 2017, family decided to take her away from the hospital against medical advice (LAMA - Leave Against Medical Advice) and she succumbed the same day," it said.

"An itemized bill spread over 20 pages was explained and handed over to the family at the time of their departure from the hospital. Patient was treated in the Paediatric ICU for 15 days and was critical right from the time of admission, requiring intensive monitoring. Treatment during these 15 days included mechanical ventilation, high frequency ventilation, continuous renal replacement therapy, intravenous antibiotics, inotropes, sedation and analgesia. Care of ventilated patients in ICU requires a high number of consumables as per globally accepted infection control protocols. All consumables are transparently reflected in records and charged as per actuals," FHL added.