Death of Pune women: CM promises SOP to avoid further incidents; hospital announces “no deposit” policy

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Saturday (5 April 2025) that his government is working to draft standard operating procedures (SOPs) to prevent incidents such as the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune.

The hospital was allegedly under fire from political parties and civic groups for the death of the pregnant woman, as she was denied admission for the outstanding deposit of Rs 1 million.

Tanisha Bhise, wife of BJP MLC Amit Gorkhe’s personal secretary, died in another facility after giving birth to twin daughters.

The Chief Minister told reporters that the error needs to be corrected after the Bhise family and Gorkhe are here with him seeking strict action against the hospital government.

“The family of the deceased met with me and I assured them that a committee has been set up to investigate the incident. I told them that strict action will be taken to take strict action against those found responsible. The state government is working to avoid such incidents in the future and will give me a memorandum to the office of the charity committee member.”

Asked about complaints against several charitable hospitals, the chief minister said an amendment was recently conducted during the parliamentary meeting to give more power to charitable committee members.

“Our efforts are to bring the entire charitable hospital system to a platform to ensure transparency and accountability of bed distribution. To monitor this, we also plan to connect CM’s medical help batteries to the system.”

Speaking about the protesters’ request for FIR registration related to the woman’s death, CM said: “Anything necessary to do in any case. In response to an open letter from Deenath Mangeshkar Hospital, the hospital expressed harm to the use of the term “insensitive”, which he acknowledged the efforts made to establish the hospital.

The Chief Minister said: “After the great efforts of the Mangeshkar family, the Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital was established, but the errors need to be corrected. The Commission has some major findings. However, until the full discovery is pointed out, what is not appropriate.”

Mr. Fadnavis added: “I’m not saying everything the hospital does is wrong, but recent events are indeed an insensitive nature. If they try to correct the error, I welcome it.”

A member of the Bhise family said the chief minister heard their version of the incident.

“We asked him to take action against hospital officials. We hope CM can provide us with justice,” the family said.

Earlier in the day, the hospital announced that in view of the latest incident, the hospital will no longer require patient deposits in the emergency department.

“In the early days of the Deenath Mangeshkar hospital, we never paid deposits. But as the number of key cases increased and the cost of complex treatments rose, the hospital began to deposit deposits in certain high-cost cases,” said Dr. Dhananjay Kelkar, the hospital’s medical director, in an open letter.

“In view of yesterday’s incident, we have reassessed this practice and passed a resolution that hospitals will no longer pay patients entering through the emergency room, including emergency delivery and pediatric emergencies. This will be implemented immediately,” he said.

He defended the hospital by reiterating that he personally told the woman’s relatives to pay as they could and provide all help, but they left the patient without notifying anyone.

Dr. Kelkar added that while it is incorrect to put the hospital directly responsible for the incident and the unfortunate death, the hospital is still investigating whether it shows sufficient sensitivity to patients.

On Friday, Dr. Kelkar called it the “Black Sun.”

Speaking of the protests, Mr. Fadnavis said that while public anger makes sense, some people are now engaged in “Showbazi“(drama), should be avoided.

He also condemned Sushrut Ghaisas’s mother for damage to the hospital, allegedly caused by the BJP Women’s Wing. The police filed a case in this regard.

On Saturday, the NCP (SP), Akhand Maratha Morcha and Lahuji Shakti Sena activists, Dr. Ghaisas, who continued to seek deposits outside the hospital, charged Dr. Ghaisas, asking for a case registration of the hospital doctor.

Some members of Lahuji Shakti Sena went to the hospital’s terrace and put forward slogans targeting the government. Later, they were sent down by the police with the help of the fire brigade.

An internal investigation report by Mangeshkar Hospital on Friday said the allegations of refusing to refuse non-payments were “Rs 1 million” charges, which were “misleading” and were caused by her family’s “frustration”.