State must pay for private hosp patients’ food: Etala

A day after Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao announced the government’s decision to allow private hospitals to treat Covid-19 patients, and the government issued an order laying down the conditions that included permission for them to charge for disposables such as PPE kits, the health department officials were advised to look into how the state can provide disposables to hospitals of private medical colleges.

The cost of food for patients in such facilities should also be borne by the state, health minister Etala Rajendar has suggested.

During the day, several private hospitals, large and small, voiced their concern that the rates fixed for Covid-19 patients’ treatment might not be workable for them. The minister’s suggestions came at a meeting with senior health department officials where steps through which the government could cooperate with private medical colleges in treating Covid-19 patients were considered. Plans were discussed to ensure timely and good quality diet for patients at Gandhi and other hospitals.

Earlier, addressing a press conference, the minister said the government will launch a door-to-door health survey in the city to identify people suffering from fevers, severe respiratory acute infections (SARI), and influenza like illnesses (ILI). Additional personnel to be employed as Ashas (Accredited Social Health Activists) will be recruited for six months to a year for the survey.

It was here that the government announced the rates to be charged by accredited private labs for testing for Covid-19, as well as rates for different services that private hospitals can charge for treating patients.

Rajendar said the decision announced by the Chief Minister on Sunday on testing 50,000 people in 30 Assembly constituencies in Hyderabad and surrounding districts will help ascertain the spread of the disease in these areas and control it from spreading. Acknowledging that Covid-19 cases were on the rise in GHMC limits since the lifting of the lockdown, Rajendar said that though private labs and hospitals are now allowed to test, they can do so only on people who exhibit symptoms. The government will crack down on any promotion or advertisement by these facilities offering Covid-19 services. They will have to strictly comply with rules on providing daily updates on Covid-19 related cases to the government, he added.