NEW DELHI: Many of the small private hospitals which were offering around 10 beds for coronavirus patients have withdrawn their services.
But their names continue on the Delhi Corona App showing zero occupancy.
In an earlier order by the Delhi government, private hospitals with more than 50 beds were told to allot 20 per cent of their capacity to COVID-19 wards.
Many such small hospitals provided around 10 beds to corona positive patients.
This reporter called up some of these hospitals based on the app, which showed all beds out of the 10-12 hospitals allotted for coronavirus being available.
Of these, many said they have shut services to admit the COVID-19 patients.
As per the app, there are 31 hospitals with a bed capacity of 10 for patients. Of these, eight hospitals showed all beds were vacant.
When contacted, three said they have stopped services and one said the patients are being admitted in another branch of the hospital and not as mentioned on the app.
“We are facing a huge financial loss since we converted our facilities into COVID beds. The non-COVID patients had stopped coming and we were unable to manage it. We don’t have any idea why the hospital’s name continues on the app despite the nodal officer having already been alerted,” said an HR representative from one of the hospital.
However, these hospitals said that they are not admitting critical patients or those whose condition can worsen.
“It won’t be our responsibility to provide transport to a patient whose condition worsens and he needs to be shifted to another hospital. If the patient needs ventilator or oxygen or ICU care, the relatives will have to make arrangements and get him admitted in a different facility,” said one hospital.
Another hospital, which also cited the same reason, said it is not very keen on admitting patients and is mostly turning down such requests, depending on the patient’s condition.
“We suggest either staying at home or getting admitted to a bigger hospital. There has been an incident where we had to transfer a patient to another facility which turned down admission and the patient succumbed. We were blamed,” said the head of a hospital.
Other hospitals said they are providing the services out of fear of cancellation of their registration.
“We have no other option, but to run it. Most of us are facing huge financial losses, besides staff are not willing to work,” said the owner of one such private hospital."