March 2: Rupali Basu, CEO (eastern region) of Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, resigned from her post today amid a series of allegations against the hospital about medical negligence and unethical practices.
Some senior doctors at Apollo told Metro that they had been unhappy over how Basu was running the hospital and had expressed their dissatisfaction to top officials of the Apollo Group from Chennai. Some of these doctors accused her of not allowing treatment to start before an initial payment was made.
Basu, who is currently in New Zealand, was unavailable for comment. Metro had sent her a WhatsApp message in the evening, to which she did not respond. She is scheduled to return tomorrow.
Hospital sources described Basu's resignation as the fallout of a "clean-up" drive.
"Rupali Basu has resigned and there will be a new leadership taking over with Rana Dasgupta as CEO with immediate effect," they said. "A team from the group office, comprising senior-most officials, will be stationed in Calcutta to re-evaluate all processes. N. Sathyabhama, director of medical services (southern region) of the Apollo Group, will assume additional charge of this region to oversee all processes."
The state government had instituted a probe on February 25 after the family of an accident victim lodged a complaint of medical negligence against Apollo Gleneagles. The family said that the hospital had refused to let them shift the patient to SSKM Hospital because they were unable to clear the entire bill. The hospital took fixed deposit certificates as collateral from the family of the patient, Sanjay Roy, after they gave a cheque for Rs 3.6 lakh.
Roy died at SSKM last Friday. His wife filed a police complaint against the hospital authorities alleging negligence in treatment and extortion.
Two days ago, Preetha Reddy, executive vice-chairman of the Apollo Group of Hospitals, India, came to Calcutta and held a series of meetings with senior doctors. "Most of us expressed our dissatisfaction over many steps taken by Basu," said one doctor.
Reddy also met senior officials of the administration.
Apollo Gleneagles, located off the Bypass, had increased its capacity from 350 beds before 2010 to 750 beds. The occupancy rate had also increased manifold and under Basu, many expensive equipment were bought, said doctors and hospital officials.
"However, the focus was too much on revenue, which made patients and a section of doctors unhappy with the hospital," said one senior doctor.
Several doctors who spoke to Metro on condition of anonymity said they were set stiff targets by Basu and her finance team, which were often difficult to meet without "manipulating the system".
Many patients have alleged that they were billed twice for doctor visits even though the doctor came to see them only once in a day. Some doctors said they often did not visit a patient twice in a day because the two visits were not required.
One doctor said Basu had introduced a system of "office permission" that ensured that any major surgery or procedure would not start before the patient's family made a minimum deposit or, after seeing the patient's profile, the finance department would give the go-ahead, satisfied that payment would not be a problem.
"If a life-saving procedure needed to be done, we had to go ahead even if the relatives hadn't deposited money. If the bill was unpaid, there was a standing instruction from Basu that it should be charged from the doctor," said another senior consultant.
He said that on several occasions, the hospital had charged a discount given to a patient unable to clear the bill to the doctor concerned.
Another doctor accused Basu of being inaccessible at times. "On some occasions, we had to call up people in Chennai to solve issues."
Sources in the hospital administration said "Apollo Gleneagles reaffirms its commitment to patient care in West Bengal and reiterates support to the health care initiatives of the chief minister to support weaker sections of society and serve the people of Bengal in a more inclusive manner."
