HYDERABAD: The Health department has issued show-cause notices to 64 hospitals in the State, including 39 in Hyderabad, 22 in Medchal, 15 in Rangareddy and seven in Warangal (Urban) districts, based on complaints it received on the WhatsApp number meant for the public to register complaints against private hospitals (9154170960), said Director of Public Health Dr G Srinivas Rao on Thursday.
Giving a break-up of the complaints received, Dr Rao said that 88 complaints were of inappropriate billing, 130 were regarding vaccination, 65 regarding bed occupancy, and eight regarding wrong provision of information.
He added that some hospitals had multiple complaints against them, including one in Kukatpally which received six complaints against it and a hospital in Begumpet that had five.
Dr Rao said that appropriate action would be taken against hospitals found to have erred, including cancelling the permission to treat Covid- 1 9 patient s and prosecution.
Speaking about vaccinations in Telangana, Dr Rao said that the Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) was in talks with AstraZeneca and RDIF, maker of Russian vaccine Sputnik-V, as part of a global tender released by the State government to procure one crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
He said that a consensus is expected to emerge by June 4, last date by when the quotations are expected. Also, the State government placed an order of 10 lakh doses of Covaxin with Bharat Biotech, of which it received 2.5 lakh doses till now.
Speaking on Mucormycosis, Dr Rao said 44 private hospitals were treating 275 patients of the fungal infection in the State. He also informed that the test positivity rate in Telangana had decreased to 4 per cent on Thursday from 8.48 per cent on May 16.
He also said the bed occupancy had come down from 54 per cent on May 12 to 39 per cent on Thursday, in all government and private hospitals.
Speaking on the fever survey, Dr Rao said in round two, 55,45,303 households were covered and 1,78,632 symptomatic persons were detected while in round one, 1.02 crore households were covered and 2.43 lakh symptomatic persons were identified.