Corporate Hospitals doing business on dead patients.

It is shameful and disgusting to know that most corporate hospitals are playing the dirty game of making money on their dead patients. Whenever a patient dies the corpse is taken into the Intensive Care Unit and attached to a ventilator. The doctors know that the patient is dead. But they would not declare so; instead they give false hopes to the patients' families that they are 'doing their best'. The longer the dead body could be kept in the ICU, the fatter would be the bill. The management continues to keep the dead body until the family has exhausted all resources and cannot pay anymore, and then they declare the patient as dead. For each day of such 'treatment' in the ICU, it costs around one lakh rupees.
When the patient's family requests to disengage the patient from the ventilator, the management frightens them saying that the patient would die for their act. But in fact the patient is already dead. The corporate managements play on the guilt psychology of the family members and prolong the stay. Sometimes it drags on until the body starts putrefying and emanates a foul smell; then they declare the patient as dead.
Just a few days ago a doctor's family member was admitted in one of the top corporate hospitals in Secunderabad. Being a doctor, he knew that the patient had already died. But the management played on their psychology and refused to discharge the patient from the ICU. They said that they should take him away against medical advice and that they would not give them a death certificate. When this doctor approached me for advise, I explained to him the dirty game of the corporate hospitals. He promptly insisted on taking the patient back home. Even then, at every step the management of the hospital found it convenient to squeeze money from the patient's family in the name of 'Nightingale services'. The management then arranged for another doctor who is, supposedly, not a part of the hospital (but in reality he is) to issue a death certificate, at the patient's home. The death certificate charges were Rs.3,000/- (three thousands). It is to be noted that it is against medical ethics to charge fee for issuing a death certificate.
It is very unfortunate that successive governments keep pampering these private corporate hospitals whose only aim is to make money by any means howsoever cruel or unethical. Keeping dead patients and giving false hopes to the family members is one of the cruellest of sins; it is unpardonable. Only Rakshasas can stoop down to such levels.
I request my fellow members of the local circles to share their views and experiences and put pressure on the government to ensure that as and when the patients' family wants to take the patient home, the patient should be discharged. If he is dead, then the hospital should declare so and issue a death certificate. There should be no emotional blackmail of hapless family members who falsely keep hoping that their patient would somehow survive in the ICU.
Government should call for a detailed enquiry of the corporate style cheating and put an end to this abominable game of the corporate hospitals. It should instead encourage family practitioners and small hospitals of primary care who would treat patients at much lower rates and offer genuine services. more