HYDERABAD: Multiple small private hospitals, which are not equipped to treat Covid-19, have started ‘isolation facilities’ for mildly symptomatic patients and are charging as high as `30,000 per day. This is despite the Telangana High Court directing public health officials to probe into complaints about a corporate hospital overcharging Covid-19 patients. Yet, hospitals have tied up with hotels to provide isolation rooms.
Incidentally, the government has not set a price cap on hotels providing the facility. Several phone numbers are being shared on WhatsApp, dialling which patients can avail of isolation facility packages. These include doctors, food, stay and emergency medication. Express rang up one such number forwarded on WhatsApp, and a man introduced himself as Sudheer from Gayathri Hospital in Kukatpally. “We have nine special rooms, with attached bathrooms, and two cameras through which both the patient and the attender can communicate with each other without having to enter the room.
We only admit patients with mild symptoms who do not have any known comorbidities. We just need the patient’s Covid-19 test results and an ID proof for admission. They can stay for as long as they need, we always have duty doctors, nurses and oxygen facilities on the campus. We do not have ventilators and therefore, do not take in severe cases. The charge per day, inclusive of all services, is Rs 30,000,” Sudheer told Express.
District Medical and Health officials have been receiving at least four to five complaints every day about private hospitals inflating medical bills or not releasing the body if the family is unable to pay. Dr. Swarjya Lakshmi, DMHO of Rangareddy district, told Express: “We have received complaints against Continental Hospital, AIG and Medicover Hospital. Sometimes, we have to get involved to get the bodies released. It has become a regular thing now. The rates at private hospitals are way over the price limit set by the government. Each PPE kit costs Rs 700 and every time a doctor or nurse has to change it, the hospital ends up charging the patient. This is how the bills get inflated”.
Prices overshoot govt cap on treatment
In another example, KIMS Hospital has tied up with luxury hotel The Park to provide isolation rooms for `11,000 per day, and with iStay Hotels for Rs 8,000 a day. The package includes doctor’s consultation, food, counselling and on-call ambulance. The patients would have to pay Rs 6,000 extra for a ‘COVID’ kit, which as sanitisers, disposable bags, an oximeter and a thermometer, among others. The stay at these isolation facilities can range anywhere between five to 14 days, depending on how long the patient requires to recover. The prices are way higher than the State Health Department’s cap. The cap on the cost of admission in an isolation ward of a private hospital is Rs 4,000 per day.