Tension prevailed at a private hospital at Markat Nagar here on Thursday when the hospital authorities refused to hand over the body of a youth to his parents for nonpayment of treatment dues. The road mishap victim died while undergoing treatment at around 8 in the morning.
However, following intervention of the district administration, the body was handed over to the youth’s parents for cremation after inquest and postmortem. Seeing the plight of the hapless parents, who lost their only son and the insensitive attitude of the hospital authorities, hundreds of irate locals staged a dharna in front of the hospital condemning the incident.
According to sources, one Alok Das (21) of Dhenkanal Sadar had sustained grievous multiple injuries in a road accident on October 1. He was admitted at the SCB Medical College Hospital here. But after five days, he was shifted to the Aswini Hospital when an agent of it convinced his parents that better treatment package would be provided at the private hospital for only Rs 1.5 lakh.
“The hospital has already taken Rs 4 lakh from me and could not save the life of my son. Shockingly, they are now refusing to hand over the body saying there is still an outstanding hospital dues of Rs 2.35 lakh,” complained Alok’s father, saying he could manage to collect only Rs 30,000 from his relatives after knowing the death of his son.
However, following the instruction from the district Collector, the hospital authorities released the body after receiving an additional payment of Rs 30,000 and waiving out the balance ‘dues’.