• Patients had to walk up the stairs at Ujjiban in New Town and Good Samaritan near Park Circus. Neither of these hospitals had an elevator
• Underqualified nurses were serving patients in these two hospitals and in Apex, Behala

The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission on Friday recommended legal action against three private hospitals in the city.

A probe found that the three hospitals, with common ownership, lacked adequate infrastructure, had presented inflated bills to patients and were operating with healthcare personnel who were not qualified.

The hospitals have been asked to deposit Rs 15 lakh with the commission as a condition for not being shut down immediately. “Since people need healthcare services and there is pandemic ongoing, we decided not to stop admissions in the hospitals. But we have sent the probe report to the state health department and recommended action against the hospitals as per law,” said retired judge Ashim Banerjee, chairperson, West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission.

“The hospitals did not have skilled staff required to run a hospital. They were operating with nurses who are not qualified,” he said.

The commission heard 14 complaints against the three hospitals on Friday. The commission had first received complaints against the three in May. Banerjee said the commission did not shut down the hospital because people needed beds during Covid.

“Two allegations were common in all the 14 complainants we heard on Friday — infrastructure deficit and arbitrary and exorbitant bills. In some of the cases, the hospitals did not even give a detailed bill for the money they had charged,” said Banerjee.

One of the complainants told the commission that they had deposited Rs 1 lakh during admission at Apex. When the patient was taken out of the hospital after one day, the hospital returned only Rs 20,000 and kept the rest.

“The patient was charged Rs 80,000 for one day’s treatment,” said Banerjee. During Friday’s hearing, the official representing the three hospitals transferred Rs 70,000 to the bank account of the complainant.

“The official representing the hospitals offered to refund various sums of money to five of the 14 complainants. The combined refund amount was Rs 2.05 lakh,” said Banerjee.

He said that many of the complainants said patients were discharged against medical advice — a fact that demonstrated that the hospitals had some serious drawbacks that forced the families to shift the patient against doctor’s advice.

One of the families submitted a video to the commission that showed a patient who needed support having to walk to an ambulance instead of being carried on a stretcher. “There are serious infrastructure gaps in the hospitals,” Banerjee said.

The official representing the hospitals promised that they would deposit Rs 15 lakh with the commission as well as refund the amounts offered to the complainants by Monday.

The commission has also asked the hospitals not to deviate from its advisories that set caps on charges of many consumables.

The complaints were related to both Covid and non-Covid patients, said an official of the commission.