CM Y S Jagan warns private hospitals on fees

Amaravati: Severe action should be initiated against hospitals which are charging more than the government-stipulated charges for Covid-19 treatment, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has said.

Presiding over Spandana programme here on Tuesday with district collectors and SPs, the Chief Minister said that efforts should be made to look after the Covid-19 patients on humanitarian grounds and severe action should be taken against hospitals which were charging more than what was stipulated in the GO issued by the government.

The Chief Minister expressed happiness that the state stood first in conducting tests and added that those with risk factor could be saved if tests were conducted in the clusters rapidly.

He said the sooner Covid-19 cases were identified the better as the patients could be sent home for quarantine. He asked the collectors to speed up the identifying process for the pandemic so that the patients could be discharged at the earliest.

The Chief Minister said that all the Covid-19 hospitals should be fully equipped with oxygen supply and other paraphernalia for the treatment of patients and accordingly the hospitals should be given ratings.

The ward, village volunteers and mandal-level committees should monitor whether the hospitals have proper equipment to face any fire mishap. He said lessons should be learnt from the recent fire mishap at a Covid-19 hospital in Vijayawada.

With reference to Aarogyasri, the Chief Minister said that help desks should be created at all the PHCs, CHCs and area hospitals and create Arogya Mitra posts there to monitor the situation in the centres.

The Chief Minister said that Arogya Asara scheme should also be strengthened and implemented earnestly by giving the patient Rs 225 on daily basis or Rs 5,000 at the time of leaving in a month. He said priority should be given to the appointment of doctors and nurses in the Covid-19 hospitals and ensure that they are not under-staffed.

Meanwhile, reviewing the flood situation, the Chief Minister said by God's grace the flood situation in Godavari river has decreased and said that the inflows were less than 10 lakh cusecs. The situation in even Krishna has eased and at Srisailam they have started closing the crest gates. He said crop loss should be estimated before September 7.

He said a plan should be prepared by September 7 to pay an additional compensation of Rs 2,000 each to the victims of Godavari floods.