The Odisha government has warned all the private hospitals that action will be taken against them if they charge exorbitant fees from Covid-19 patients.

The government said that all the tests must be done at the approved rate notified by it and hospitals should charge reasonable fees.

The state government in a notification published the rate chart for private hospitals for treating coronavirus patients.

According to the rate chart, a private hospital can charge from Rs 2,950-Rs 4,750 for a general bed including medicine, investigation, PPE kit, food and other consumables and from Rs 10,000-Rs 17,000 for treating a patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and from Rs 12,000 to Rs 18,000 for treatment of a patient in ICU with ventilator facilities.

The government came out with the new guidelines even as the number of corona positive cases in the state touched 97,920 with reports of 3,252 new cases during the past 24 hours. The death toll stood at 470 with 14 more casualties reported in the last 24 hours.

Health secretary P.K. Mohapatra said: “We will ensure that not a single patient is exploited by any private hospital. We will take action against hospitals that don’t adhere to the new guidelines.”

The guidelines also make it mandatory for private hospitals having 30 beds or more to set aside at least 10 per cent of beds exclusively for Covid-19 patients with an option to convert the entire hospital into a Covid hospital.

However, they have to intimate the district collectors and state level officers for data updating in this regard. They have to appoint an authorised medical officer who will coordinate with state authorities.

“Such reserved beds must include appropriate numbers of ICU beds with ventilators dedicated for COVID patients. (At the rate of 10% of all available beds),” the order said.

The notification further said as the Covid patients usually have high anxiety and they must be handled very gently with proper and regular counselling on the status of the disease and the outcome of treatment. Only patients who want to pay on their own or are covered under their own insurance schemes shall be treated in private hospitals. No reimbursement or payment of any kind towards treatment of such patients will be made by the government, as per the new guidelines.

As per the new guidelines, the hospital staff will work for 14 days and then remain in uarantine for another 14 days after which they can again resume duty. The hospital shall regularly share all information with the government regarding availability of facilities, number of patients, line of treatment, availability of beds and charges. The hospital shall provide COVID-19 test results to the patients. Hospitals have been asked to create a help desk accessible physically and telephonically for counseling to the relatives of patients and share information on status of patients’ health with their attendants regularly. Hospitals shall install CCTVs in the patient treatment area for management, facilitation and screening of footage by appropriate authority as and when required.