New Delhi: The father of an eight-year-old boy who died in a private hospital in Gurgaon last year from dengue complications said on Thursday the hospital had refunded the full billed amount of about Rs 15 lakh after appeals by an MP and the health ministry.
Public health activists said the refund had been made on condition that Gopendra Parmar withdraw the police complaint of overcharging he had filed against Medanta hospital, where his son Sourya spent 22 days.
Medanta officials and doctors were not available for comment. The Telegraph spoke twice during the day to a senior administrator in the hospital, who declined comment on the subject. Two other officials, one of them a senior doctor, did not respond to phone calls from this newspaper.
Health activists believe Parmar’s case is unique because the intervention by the MP and the health ministry helped him get a settlement without him being muzzled.
Hospitals at times settle things through refunds but typically demand silence through non-disclosure agreements, said Malini Aisola, who is associated with the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), a consortium of physicians and patients’ rights advocates.
The consortium organised a media conference to announce the development and iterate longstanding concerns that the government was not doing enough to curb exploitative pricing by some private hospitals.
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