More trouble for Odisha private hospital

Reported by Sankalp Mishra 
Bhubaneswar, June 26:

A reputed hospital in Odisha’s capital city is into some serious  trouble.

After facing flak over its alleged inhuman treatment to an eleven year old child patient Anjeman, a well known  private medical facility in the state capital, Kalinga Hospital, has been accused of selling medicines at a higher price to its patients.

Anjeman who was allegedly being forcibly discharged by the hospital authorities had also had to buy medicines at a higher price, reports said.

According to reports, Anjeman needed suction catheters and examination gloves on a daily basis for his treatment but it was being provided to him at much higher rates than the market price. The suction catheters which were procured by the hospital at the rate of Rs. 25 per piece were being sold at Rs. 45.

Authorities had stopped Anjeman’s medicines for the past one week following which his father Ashwini Sahu, a poor daily wager from Kandhapalli in Bolangir district, started buying them from other medicine stores. It is then that he realised that the Kalinga Hospital was charging him much more for the medicines than their market price.

Suction catheters that were being sold for Rs. 45 at Kalinga Hospital, was bought by him for just Rs. 18 from a medicine shop nearby. Similarly, examination and surgical gloves which were being sold at the rate of Rs. 29 and Rs. 49, were available outside for Rs. 15 and Rs. 24 respectively.

While this has raised serious questions about the hospital’s integrity,  there have been demands for a probe into the matter and also into whether other private hospitals are involved in such practice.