Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

Lanka Hospitals gets green light to run Intermedia­te Care Centre

RS. 18,000 WILL BE CHARGED PER DAY AT HOTEL IN COLOMBO COVID PATIENTS CAN RECEIVE TREATMENT HERE UNDER HEALTH MINISTRY SUPERVISIO­N

- BY SUNIL JAYASIRI

Lanka Hospitals Ltd, Colombo has been given permission to run an Intermedia­te Care Centre (ICC) at a luxury hotel in Colombo to treat COVID-19 patients, Army Commander General Shavendra Silva said.

“The Health authoritie­s and National Operation Centre for the Prevention of COVID-19, has given permission to Lanka Hospitals to run a paid ICC under the supervisio­n of the Health Ministry,” General Silva told the Daily Mirror last evening.

He also said that Lanka Hospitals is to charge Rs.18,000 per day from patients.

He said that they received two proposals, one from Lanka Hospitals and the other from another leading private hospital in this regard. “But we had to turn down the proposal from the second private hospital as the hotel they have proposed, failed to meet the required requiremen­ts,” he said.

Meanwhile, General Silva said that the Koggala Long Beach Hotel, which had been converted into a paid treatment centre for COVID19 patients on January 7, has now exceeded its full capacity.

“We only had 100 rooms at the Koggala Long Beach Hotel, now all are occupied with patients, so we are going to add 40 more rooms soon,” he said adding that “we are only charging Rs 12,000 per day from a patient.”

The government initiated this programme to allow private hospitals to run paid ICC under the directive of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, considerin­g the people who are reluctant to receive treatment at Government hospitals but still can afford to get treatment from private hospitals.

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