Health Minister Banna Gupta came down heavily on private hospitals that did not attend a meeting chaired by Gupta on Thursday and directed the health department to shoot show cause notices to them. A visibly furious Gupta also directed the concerned officials to hold surprise inspections at the private hospitals that gave the meeting a miss, and warned all private healthcare facilities of action under the Disaster Management Act if they violate or tweak the rules set by the state government while treating Covid patients.
Private hospitals, he said, played an important role in fighting the second wave of the pandemic, and the government expected them to be cooperative. The private facilities treating Covid patients should not charge exorbitant fee from patients and follow the slabs set by the government, the minister added while talking to the representatives of private hospitals in Ranchi on Thursday.
“All necessary medicines needed for Covid treatment should be made available to private as well as government healthcare facilities,” said Gupta, asking the State Drug Directorate to provide sanitisers and other necessary medicines in sufficient quantity.
While the government claims that many Covid beds in private hospitals were vacant, the owners of many private hospitals have said that all their Covid beds were occupied since the last week of March. Many private hospitals also fear that increasing the count of Covid beds would make it difficult to segregate Covid and non-Covid patients.
Meanwhile, state health secretary KK Soan on Thursday asked all private hospitals to reserve at least 25 per cent of their beds for Covid patients and work on increasing the number of Covid beds in every three to four days. Besides, Soan directed all private hospitals to provide updates on Covid beds and patients to the concerned district administration in every six hours. The health secretary encouraged home isolation for asymptomatic patients. During the meeting, Soan directed all private hospitals to mention the charges for treatment of Covid infection on their website as well as in the hospital premises in order to avoid any confusion regarding the final billing amount.
“All private hospitals have to mention the per day treatment charge for Covid patients on their websites as well as in notices pasted in the hospital premises,” said Soan.
State National Health Mission (NHM) Director Ravi Shankar Shukla asked hospitals to prioritise symptomatic patients while providing Covid beds. Oxygen cylinders, he said, would be provided within two to three days of requisition to all private hospitals.