BENGALURU: To protest against the failure of officials to implement the KPME Act, citizens held a mock felicitation ceremony of Health Department officials and presented flowers to them here on Saturday.Protesters included patients who have suffered negligence in private hospitals, their families and citizen groups. They gathered at the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare Services office near Anand Rao Circle and gave roses to officials to mock their lack of implementation of the Act. Several protesters wore placards around their necks which narrated the ordeal their relatives had been through due to negligence shown by hospitals.
Abhinav, one of the protesters, wore a placard which claimed that he lost his mother aged 57 at a private hospital on Bannerghatta Road last year due to the hospital’s negligence. He claimed that his mother was admitted for a minor, 45-minute surgery to get a stone removed from her gall bladder.
However, the hospital botched up the surgery which led to infections, and did not undertake timely interventions to control them, leading to her death, he claimed. Another protester Christanand Malagi’s placard stated how he had lost his 30-year-old brother at another hospital in Sahakarnagar. The placard stated that his brother lost the use of his limbs after he underwent a VP procedure.
“The hospital refused further treatment unless the spiralling bill was paid. They refused to discharge him to a government hospital and held him hostage without treatment, which led to his death,” the placard stated.Another protester, Raju claimed that a hospital in Davangere issued his father a false HIV positive report, following which he attempted suicide.
A memorandum submitted to the department demands for Karnataka Private Medical Act 2017 to be enforced and that private hospitals display information as mandated by the Act. They also want the constitution of a grievance redressal authority in every district.