Limbs Of Elderly Man Tied Together To Extract Medical Bills

A new matter of patient abuse has been recently reported in Madhya Pradesh’s Shajapurdistrict, where limbs of Mr. Laxmi Narayan, a man of about 80 years of age were allegedly tied to a hospital bed on account of non-payment of his medical bills.

Patient abuse is any act or omission on part of a hospital, clinic or other health care facility which causes unreasonablemisery, suffering or harm to a patient. The abuse may be physical, sexual, verbal or mental and may include intentional withholding of necessary food, physical care and medical attention to the patient.

Various incidents of verbal and physical patient abuse in health care settings continue to occur however, only some make headline news like this particular incident.

The family of the victimhad claimed that a payment of Rs. 5000 was made at the time of admission of the patient for a stomach ailmentat Shajapur City Hospital, but they were incapable of full payment of the medical bill as the nationwide lockdown resulted in loss of their livelihood. Also, the victim was denied of proper food and medicines for three to four days, as alleged by his daughter.

The hospital authorities, in their defence asserted that the 80-year old patient was tied with ropes to the hospital bed because he was suffering from convulsions as a consequence of an electrolyte imbalance. They claimed that the action was a precautionary measure taken by them so that the patient could not hurt himself. Also, they informed that the medical bill has been waived off on humanitarian grounds.

The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan took cognizance of this inhuman deed through twitter where he assured that authoritarian and severe measures will be undertaken against the hospital authorities.

The District Collector of Shajapur District,Mr. Dinesh Jain informed a news agency that administrative steps are being taken to investigate into the particulars of the matter and guaranteed that stringent action will be taken against the hospital authorities for such cruelty.

Also, another Senior Political Leader, Mr. Kamal Nath emphasised that the hospitals have continued to loot the common people amidst the global pandemic, calling the incident to be “inhuman and barbaric”.