Tirupati: Special Enforcement Bureau to monitor fee structure in private hospitals

Tirupati: The district Covid task force has decided to focus on the fleecing of Covid patients by private hospitals. Deputy Chief Minister K Narayana Swamy, Minister Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy, Collector M Hari Narayanan, Commissioner PS Girisha, Joint Collector (Development) V Veerabrahmam and other members of the task force met here on Sunday to take stock of the prevailing Covid situation in the district.

Speaking on the occasion, the Deputy CM asked the officials to take steps to appoint a task force team to prevent the fleecing by private hospitals. He expressed the need to increase the bed strength further as the cases have been ever increasing.

Minister Ramachandra Reddy mentioned the delay in announcing the Covid test results and directed them that they should be out on the same day of collecting the swab. The district has 1,971 Covid beds so far both in public and private sectors in which 294 beds are equipped with ventilator facility.

In order to avoid the scarcity of oxygen, he asked the SVIMS Director Dr B Vengamma and Ruia hospital Superintendent Dr T Bharathi to set up one oxygen tank in their hospitals in addition to the existing plants. The private hospitals should invariably follow the fee structure approved by the government which should be monitored by the Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB).

Every hospital has to display the fee structure in the form of a banner and if anyone violates the government guidelines should be placed under blacklist. A toll free number should be introduced so that the patients can complain their grievances, he said.

Giving a powerpoint presentation on the steps taken to prevent the Covid spread, Collector Hari Narayanan said that during March 1to April 24 this year a total of 2,27,260 Covid tests were conducted in the district out of which 20,851 positives are reported with a positivity rate of 9.17 percent.

The government hospitals have 1,971 beds which includes the ICU, non-ICU, oxygen and other beds while the 30 private hospitals have a total of 1,665 beds. In addition to these, Covid care centres have 3,822 beds and steps were on to provide more care centres.

So far, 3,65,312 people have taken the Covid vaccine first dose while 51,112 have got their second dose as well.

MLAs B Karunkar Reddy and B Madhusudan Reddy, DM&HO Dr M Penchalaiah, DCHS Dr P Saralamma, Aarogya Sri Coordinator Dr Balanjaneyulu and other officials participated in the meeting.