Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: At a time when even many hospitals do not hesitate in charging money for treating the poorest of the poor, two Mumbai-based private hospitals have set an example by not charging any money from the victims of the recent serial blasts.
As per a newspaper report, Friday, Saifee and Harkisondas hospitals, which treated victims of the blast at Opera House, have not charged the patients or the government for the treatment they gave to the blast victims.
The representatives of both hospitals informed the state authorities that they won’t accept even a single rupee for treating July 13 serial blasts victims.
This was confirmed by State Health Minister Suresh Shetty, who was quoted as saying, “Hospital authorities have expressly informed us that they do not want any money from us.”
Two hospitals came to limelight when over 100 hundred patients were brought in for treatment by the relief and rescue teams from the Opera House blast site. Both hospitals treated over 100 patients as outpatients and about 40 were admitted. Surgeries to remove shrapnel, orthopaedic surgeries involving amputations, burn injuries, among many other complex procedures were performed.
Initially, the accounting staff at Saifee hospital charged about four blast victims up to Rs25,000.
However, the money taken from them was soon returned after the senior administrators realized the mistake.
“That was a mistake. We returned the money when we learned of it. I gave my staff a thorough dressing-down for taking money from those victims,” Dr SJ Bapai, Assistant Director, Public Relations and Government Administration, Saifee hospital was quoted as saying.
Bapai further informed that the hospital authorities also told the collector that about their decision to provide free treatment to the victims.
Similarly, Medical director Dr PM Bhujang of the Harkisondas Nurrotumdas hospital also revealed that they were clearly instructed by Nita Ambani to provide free treatment to blast victims.
First Published: Friday, July 22, 2011, 10:33