A daily wage labourer was allegedly beaten to death by the hospital staff following an argument over payment of bills in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh, on Thursday.
The deceased Sultan Khan, had come to the hospital in Quarsi bypass area as he was facing difficulty in passing urine for the last several days. He was accompanied by his nephew Chaman. He was allegedly attacked with sticks by the staff of the hospital on Thursday.
The brazen attack was caught on a CCTV camera and the police are probing the incident.
Khan’s nephew Chaman asked for the treatment cost from the hospital staff before admission.
“The hospital staff told me that they would tell the treatment cost after conducting an ultrasound but the hospital gave me a bill of Rs 5,000 for medicines without conducting an ultrasound. We paid the money,” Chaman was quoted by news agency IANS as saying.
The hospital staff later told them that per day charges of the hospital would be around Rs 4,000-5,000.
“As we were unable to pay this amount, we asked the hospital to discharge him. When we came out of the hospital after making the payment of Rs 5,000, a staff approached us and demanded that we pay them Rs 4,000 more,” Chaman said.
He said he pleaded with the staff to let them go but they started beating the victim.
Dr Danish Ali from the hospital, meanwhile, said that the patient had refused to pay the amount of Rs 4,000. “They attacked our staffer on this issue,” he said.
The CCTV footage of the incident has been recovered by the police. The video footage purportedly shows that the staffer is going inside the hospital after clashing with the patient’s relative and coming out with other workers armed with sticks. It also shows them attacking the patient
The body of the deceased has been sent for post-mortem and the result is awaited.
“No FIR has been registered so far. We are probing the case,” said inspector Chote Lal from Quarsi police station.