Ahmeabad: Civic body issues show-cause notice to CIMS hospital

States discrepancies in reimbursement bills for treatment of Covid patients under the civic body’s quota.

The first serosurvey of Ahmedabad district, excluding the areas under the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) conducted in December last year, results of which were published recently, shows an overall seropositivity of nearly 20 per cent (File Photo)

The Ahmeabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has issued a show-cause notice to CIMS Hospital, a private hospital in Ahmedabad city’s Science City area, Tuesday for several discrepancies, including inflated bills, missing medical records and admitting non-health staff under staff quota, in the bills submitted for reimbursement against the treatment of Covid-19 patients under the civic body’s quota. The discrepancies, officials said, were detected during an audit of the bills by the AMC.

The notice, issued by AMC medical officer (health) Dr Bhavin Solanki, states: “Keeping in mind all these issues, your hospital and hospital staff has attempted to misguide AMC and get more than entitled amount, thus financially affecting the corporation. This is a serious issue. You are required to submit a written explanation in this within seven days.” The Indian Express has accessed a copy of the notice.

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It adds that Covid patients’ daily clinical notes with vital stats recordings by the doctors were missing. Further, instead of treating an AMC-referred patient in an isolation ward, they were treated in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) or Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with ventilator, the notice states.

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The notice highlights that despite improvement in the condition of four patient, they were not shifted to other isolation wards. It mentions the names and registration numbers of the four patients.

The AMC audit team also found that several patients were given treatment in an HDU or ICU with ventilator back-to-back. “Despite the patient showing no signs they were kept in these wards for three to four days,” the notice states. Twelve such cases were listed in the show cause notice.

The hospital, it added, had admitted its medical staff, not under Covid-19 duty, under the AMC’s quota. Thirty-one such patients, including staff nurse, housekeeping, security, health worker, deputy manager, clinical care officer, senior technician, senior manager and executive, were detected in the audit. Nine persons, the show cause notice also states, were shown as hospital staff but not supported by any identity card and it was revealed that they were from outside the municipal limits.

“Many Covid-19 patients were reported to be stable and asymptomatic at the time of admission, but still they were admitted in HDU for 10 days,” the notice states.

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CIMS was among the initial list of 42 hospitals designated as Covid-19 hospitals by the AMC. Under the MoU, 50 per cent of the beds were reserved for AMC-referred patients for which the expenses were to be borne by the corporation as per its four categories of charges.

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