After a video conference involving the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) and Health and Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar, the private centres have agreed to allocate 50 percent of their beds for government referred patients within a week. The same policy was followed last year during the first wave.
Private hospitals have been advised to vacate beds occupied by non-COVID patients who don't require hospitalisation and reserve the same for COVID patients. They will also collaborate with hotels to run private COVID care centres as was done last year.
"Patients without symptoms and with mild symptoms will be isolated in hotels and COVID-19 care centres. Only patients with severe conditions will be treated in hospitals," Sudhakar said.
Drug companies stopped the production of Remdesivir when the cases went down and private hospitals flagged the issue of shortage of this much needed COVID-19 drug. To address this, the minister said he would discuss with the drug controller and supply the medicine to private hospitals at government rates and said that at no cost should there be any shortage.
He informed that the government has taken measures to ensure sufficient quantities of ventilators and oxygen. If required, industrial oxygen will be utilized, he added. In response to questions on a mini-lockdown, the minister said that in one year of the COVID experience and observation of 3 to 4 waves in other countries, it has been found that a minimum of 14-day lockdown is needed to break the chain. However, the state is not in a position to take such harsh steps, he said.
"The government is very well aware that people are suffering due to the economic slowdown. There is no consideration of lockdown as of now. People should cooperate in controlling the pandemic. We have not said that a lockdown will be imposed but are appealing to the public not to make it inevitable," Sudhakar said, appealing to people not to move from cities to villages and spread the virus.
Commenting on the incident of health staff faking an RT-PCR test, he said it was an isolated incident by a temporary D-group worker, for which an FIR was filed and they were removed from the job immediately. He highlighted that the state has done over 2.2 crore tests out of which 85% are RT-PCR.
Private hospitals raised the issue of 50 percent of pending bills from Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust for government quota patients. They also said that there was no transparency in reimbursement as for ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and HDU (High Dependency Unit) patients, they were given reimbursement of general ward rates. ICU and HDU patients need tests, medicines, CT scans, oxygen and more facilities than regular patients. The government agreed to look into this.