A day after dismissing all rumours regarding late singer SP Balasubrahmanyam's unpaid hospital bills, SPB’s son SP Charan and the doctors of MGM hospital made a joint statement on Monday. The singer denied that the family was unable to pay the hospital bills for the 50 days the singer SPB underwent treatment, and said that the bills were regularly paid every week.
“We regularly kept making payments and the insurance covered one portion of it. At last, after Appa's passing, when we asked doctors on what amount was pending, we heard from them that the Chairman had directed the management to forgo the rest of the charges,” he said.
Charan was addressing unverified messages that were being widely circulated that said Delhi had cleared pending bills. One of the messages read, “Sad but true! SPB's hospital bills - 3Crore plus for 51 days.. Rs 1.85 crore balance had to be paid by SPB’s family in the morning to take the mortal remains.They could not mobilise. State government ignored them. The Tamil and Telugu patriots looked away. An Appeal to Delhi and the relief was instantaneous. Vice president Venkaiah Naidu's daughter went and cleared up the hospital bill after which the body was released.”
While SP Charan did not say how much the bill was, he reiterated that the hospital had been very helpful to his family. “We came here fully trusting them. We know they'll support us. We are grateful to the hospital.”
When asked if he had reached out to the state government and if the state government had refused to help, Charan said, “I had reached out to the Health Secretary a few days prior to Appa’s death, mainly to clarify the government’s statement in which they had said that they were willing to offer any kind of help to the family. I was not sure if it was meant financially and I had asked him if there were any such statements made by the government. He said he'll check and get back at the earliest. I didn't hear back but I wasn't expecting a quick response either.”
The hospital also clarified that the state government had not made any inquiries into the hospital bills but was in constant touch regarding SPB’s health.
Charan reiterated, “On that day of dad’s death, we had come prepared to pay the bills. Money was not a factor for us. But, the hospital informed us that whatever we had paid up to that point was sufficient.”
He also added rumours that the family was unable to pay the bills which led to postponing announcing the time of SPB’s death by a day, were baseless.
"Please have some mercy on our family. Please show us some respect. Please give us some time to grieve," singer SP Charan requested media. “We have not been given time to grieve. Every day a new problem comes up,” he added.
Singer SP Balasubrahmanyam, who was admitted at MGM Healthcare in Chennai on August 5 after contracting COVID-19, passed away 50 days later on September 25. This was after the singer tested negative for COVID-19 on September 14.
Explaining the case of his death, one of the doctors who were attending to him said, “As a result of being put under ECMO with tracheostomy done, he contracted severe infection about 48 hours prior to his death. This is a known complication but 9 in 10 times it can be treated with antibiotics. However, he failed to respond and his infection kept getting severe. About 24 hours before his death, we noticed that his CT scan showed a brain bleed. His organs started failing and the infection kept getting worse. He finally suffered a cardiac arrest.”