Alleging harassment by the zonal BBMP nodal officer for hospital management, heads of nearly 25 private hospitals in Bommanahalli zone have threatened to shut their hospitals and stage a protest in front of Vidhana Soudha on Tuesday.
The hospital owners will meet BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad on Monday and submit a written complaint. “We will also submit a complaint to the health department and stage a protest on Tuesday,” said C. Vishwanath Reddy of Prashanth Hospital.
“Although we have been the first to offer our entire 100-bed hospital for COVID-19 management in the city, the BBMP nodal officer has been harassing us over the last one month. He has been making unreasonable demands asking us to submit various documents within 24 hours, which is practically impossible,” he said.
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Vinay B.G., who runs Supra Hospital, said, “While we are not objecting to the show cause notices issued to our hospital regarding COVID-19 deaths, the officer has been asking us to submit discharge summary and death summary of patients from July 2015 onwards within 24 hours. How is this possible?”
Denying the allegations, the nodal officer Narayanswamy said he is only following the decisions made by the Bommanahalli BBMP command centre. “We are taking up a death audit as we learnt that many doctors, who are not qualified, treated patients resulting in their death. Moreover, these hospitals have defaulted on property tax payment. Hence, I have asked for these documents. It is not harassment,” he said.