BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Government has warned private hospitals and testing laboratories of stringent action - including license suspension - for charging exorbitantly from people reporting for Covid-19 tests or treatment.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health department PK Mohapatra said the hospitals must not take the advantage of a situation like Covid-19 pandemic and should cooperate with the people during the crisis.
“We are very firm in our intent. We will take stern action if any specific complaint is received against any private lab or hospital. No one will be spared, if people face harassment while availing treatment at prescribed rate,” he warned.
Mohapatra said private hospitals have no business charging extra for testing and treatment of Covid-19 patients as price capping has been done after consultation with private players. There should not be any hesitation in testing as price of kits has drastically come down, he said.
While a Viral Transport Medium (VTM) kit is now priced at Rs 35, RNA extraction kit is available at Rs 99 and RT-PCR kit costs Rs 379. If one lab adds Rs 50 per test towards PPE (One PPE costs Rs 500 and one can do at least 10 tests wearing one PPE), the overall cost would be Rs 553.
However, the Government has fixed the price at Rs 1200 per RT-PCR test. Similarly, the bed charge has been capped at Rs 2,750 to Rs 18,000 for treatment in three different categories - general bed, ICU and with ventilator.
There are allegations that some private labs had stopped collecting swab from home and deliberately insisted people to travel to collection centres located far away, while some hospitals added straight Rs 2000 as doctor consultation fee for Covid tests after the Government capped the cost of RT-PCR test.