Twenty four hours at a star hotel in the city: Rs 12,800

Twenty-eight hours at a clinic in the city: Rs 22,000

A non-resident Indian has moved court against Ruby General Hospital, which billed him around Rs 22,000 as room rent for 28 hours, plus cost of treatment and a few diagnostic tests.

A week after Diptendu Sekhar Chakraborty, a Canada-based businessman, walked out of the hospital without paying the “fictitious” bill, a gang allegedly sent by the Ruby authorities visited his home and “forced him” to sign a cheque for the amount.

Acting on his plea, the Alipore chief judicial magistrate on Tuesday asked Tiljala thana to take “proper steps” against the managing director, chief general manager and other executives of the hospital for the alleged misconduct.

The hospital authorities, on their part, claimed that they had lodged a complaint with the court against Chakraborty, as his cheque for Rs 22,000 had been dishonoured. “The cheque was not cleared, as Chakraborty had asked the bank to stop payment,” said Brigadier S. Sanyal, chief medical director of the hospital.

Chakraborty, staying in Dover Lane, was admitted to hospital with abdominal pain around 4.30 am on January 22. He was assigned a room with a daily rent of Rs 1,000. “The pain lessened after I was administered some medicines, but I could not sleep for the noise. I could not even call the attendant, as the bell was not working. The authorities then offered me a room with a tag of Rs 4,000,” Chakraborty said in his petition.

Through the day, he underwent several tests, while “two doctors visited him for two to five minutes”. The next day, as he was not feeling comfortable with the medical treatment, he decided to leave the hospital.

Chakraborty’s counsel Partha Ghosh said: “The bill details showed that my client had undergone various tests, including one for HIV, which cannot be conducted without the patient’s consent.”