We empathise with the deceased’s family, but we’re in business

THE key value of our hospital is to empathise with our patients. This is why we don’t turn down any patients at our door steps. When he (the deceased) was brought here, he came with a diagnosis of a brain tumour, with overwhelming sepsis. We accepted him and because he was not stable for surgery as that time, he was taken into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). With that, we accepted the liability to treat no matter what. For that, they paid a deposit of N1. 6million.

“We moved on with the treatment of the patient barring any other circumstances. We invited some specialists like nuero-surgeons; those are speacialists that deal with brain disorders and things like that. We stabilised him for about three days and went on with surgery. Eventually, a bill of N2.7 million was accumulated.

“As at now, it is the sum of N1.6million that they paid initially at the point of entry that they have paid. We went on with treatment, calling in specialists from outside and paying them along the line. Eventually, he died and now they said they want the corpse without paying anything.

“I have met with them in my office and they never agreed to even pay anything at all. As at today, in my meeting with them, they have not agreed to pay a dime out of the balance. The management is still discussing and we have agreed among ourselves that we are willing to give something significant off the balance.

“The ICU section was newly set up. It was barely set up three weeks ago. It is a newly-set up section to save people’s lives. If we did not have the ICU in place, the man wouldn’t have survived the two or three days.  We wouldn’t have accepted him in the first place. We just newly set up the place, but I will not go into how we did that. It is newly set up and we just have few patients coming in.

“We are ready because of the empathy we are talking about to still remove significant amount off the balance. If we actually run the system this way, tomorrow, we won’t be here to save other lives.

“They claimed they offered to pay N500, 000 and we refused to collect it from them. But that is not true. Nobody will reject money, even in our private business. If they had offered it, we would have collected it. Nobody would have refused to collect what they claimed they wanted to offer.

“Procedurally, we know that patients may not be able to pay up their bills before they are discharged, so we have a legal process by which people could be met halfway. Usually, they need to meet the legal adviser, pay their money and then they would make an offer, which is acceptable to the hospital. If it is acceptable to the hospital, whatever is left, they would make a legal document to that effect. But in this particular case, they felt they could just come and take their corpse away, but that is not how negotiation for payment should be made, especially when it involves an ICU treatment where many specialists’ attention have been involved.

“Bear in mind that some of these specialists are not our staff. We had to invite them from outside. Even if we are going to give any relief, it should be at a reasonable percentage that will meet the cost incurred. That is the point we want them to understand”.

That he was on oxygen did not mean that he was not eating. He was placed on specialised food that was compounded by dietician. They did not understand all that. If they had been patient enough, all these would have been explained to them.

This letter came in on the 22nd of January, that was yesterday o the CMD’s office and he minuted it to me and wrote ‘COO urgent’.  I got it this morning and we are actually taking action. We have met and have agreed to give them a significant concession.