Mamata pulls up private hospitals for ‘unethical money-making’

Kolkata, Feb 22: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday pulled up city-based private hospitals for “unethical” money-making practices and announced the formation of a regulatory commission to monitor their activities. The Trimool Congress supremo berated hospital magements for excess billing and medical negligence and called upon them to show a “humane” side.

Banerjee met the top brass of private hospitals (that have 100-plus bed capacity) at Town Hall with a roster of grievances of the public against them, including turning away emergency patients.

“We are setting up a West Bengal Health Regulatory Commission headed by an ex-chief justice or judge and experts. It will have representation of the public, the physicians and the hospitals as well. There will comprehensive monitoring from billing to performance,” she said. The Commission will submit a report every month. She also said the West Bengal Clinical Act will be amended and will be made stronger. While admonishing the hospital authorities, Banerjee advised citizens to refrain from taking law into their own hands, referring to the vandalism at CMRI hospital where relatives of a patient and locals ransacked the hospital accusing it of wrong treatment and demanding money without taking care of critical patients. (ians)