One of the delicate things that we need to handle is to ensure that patients pay their bills reguilarly. It gets worse when a child has expired or is being discharged against medical advice and they don’t have money to pay the bill.
I’ve been on night shift this week. A child expired in the morning and the mother said she couldn’t pay the bill. The body, as per hospital protocol, is kept in the mortuary. She kept coming and weeping her story. Unfortunately I don’t have the authority to give a concession. Early in the morning when I called up the Head of the Department for something else, she enquired specifically about this case and then agreed to give a concession immediately. Made me fel relieved.
Another child who was discharged against advice had the same problem. I took over at about 8 PM and the parents approached me at 9 PM for a concession as they did not have the money. All I could inform them was my powerlessness. Then out of the blue the Head of Unit called up at 10 PM to enquire specifically about this child. She felt their claim was genuine and alowed them to go.
Now there are many many more cases where patients get a concession, but these two were incidents where I felt stuck, but God moved to sort it out!