HYDERABAD: A division bench of Telangana High Court on Wednesday directed the petitioner’s counsel to implead the private corporate and teaching hospitals as respondent parties to the PIL filed, seeking directions to the authorities concerned, for taking steps to prevent alleged rampant profiteering by these hospitals in treatment of COVID-19 patients in the city and other parts of the State.
The bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy was dealing with the PIL filed by DG Narasimha Rao, general secretary of Patnam organisation, with a plea to direct the State government to take over at least 50 per cent of the beds of these private corporate and teaching hospitals, and evolve a transparent web based mechanism in allotting such beds to the needy patients and to provide treatment at the rates already fixed by the State.
Petitioner’s counsel NS Arjun Kumar submitted that these corporate hospitals have been collecting exorbitant charges ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh per day from each COVID-19 patient depending on severity of the cases, while the government had capped these rates in the range of Rs 4,000 to Rs 9,000 per day.
In fact, none of these hospitals were implementing the rates fixed by the government and were charging exorbitantly by taking advantage of several patients rushing to these hospitals in view of reports of pathetic conditions prevailing in government hospitals, he added.
After hearing the case, the bench directed the counsel to implead these hospitals as parties to the case and to provide proof of such overcharging to prove his allegations. The bench posted the matter to July 10, for further hearing.