The state clinical establishment regulatory commission on Monday told a hospital that Calcutta High Court had only set aside the panel’s authority to fix treatment rates but did not stop it from enforcing discounts on medicine and consumables.
Ashim Banerjee, the chairperson of the commission, told Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals that the commission is within its rights to impose a discount while asking the hospital to return Rs 5,082 to a patient.
Banerjee told a news conference that Apollo had questioned the commission’s authority to ask it to give discounts.
The commission had asked Apollo to return the amount after imposing discounts on consumables and pharmacy items, which were not covered by insurance.
The commission had earlier issued an advisory asking private hospitals to offer at least 10 per cent discount on medicines and 20 per cent on consumables.
“When we asked Apollo to return Rs 5,082 after offering the discounts, they said they went to court against us and we lost the case.”
“We told them we are within our rights to ask them to offer the discount because we have challenged the high court’s order before a division bench (of the court). Moreover, the high court’s order only set aside rate fixation by us. The court did not say anything about offering discounts,” Banerjee said.
An official at Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals later told Metro: “We will comment after going through the order.”
This newspaper had in June 2023 reported that the high court had ruled that the West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission, formed to redress people’s grievances against private hospitals, had no right to fix hospital charges.
The commission had issued several advisories and an order fixing charges at private hospitals.
“The advisories and the order are unconstitutional and are not binding on the petitioners,” Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya had said in the order. “The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission shall therefore recall and rescind the impugned advisories and is prohibited from giving any effect to the impugned advisories and order to the extent of fixation of rates and charges for clinical establishments including the petitioner No. 1.…”
Apollo had moved the petition citing 26 advisories by the commission between July 27, 2020, and September 7, 2021, and an order on June 2, 2021, on the rates to be charged by clinical establishments.