A patient whose bowel was ruptured during a colon examination was ordered yesterday to pay HK$137,696 to the Matilda International Hospital after spending 11 days there, including three in the intensive care unit, following an emergency operation.
This compared with HK$17,800 that Rekha Chugh, 62, had expected to pay if nothing went wrong during the colonoscopy she received in September 2009 at the private hospital on The Peak.
She was ordered to pay the bill because she failed to show up in the District Court for a hearing in the dispute between the hospital and the family. Her husband, Manohar Chugh, told the court she was ill.
But Master Mak Kwok-cheung found there were insufficient grounds to adjourn the case and ordered the family to pay the fee, interest and legal costs.
Immediately after the order was handed down, her husband said: 'No justice [has been] done.'
Rekha Chugh and her family had been refusing to pay the fees since the incident in September 2009 - although the cost was fully covered by insurance - because they thought doctors and hospitals should not be allowed to charge for rectifying problems caused in their procedures.