HYDERABAD: As controversy surrounds corporate and private hospitals charging lakhs of rupees for Coronavirus treatment and some VIPs, including people’s representatives, preferring them to Gandhi Hospital, Health Minister Eatala Rajender said that the Telangana government was not interested in allowing Covid-19 treatment in private hospitals to prevent exploitation, but was forced to do so following the High Court orders last month.
Earlier, the State government wanted to ensure that every Covid-affected patient gets treated at government hospitals, he said during an interaction with a select group of media personnel here on Friday. When asked about the price cap fixed by the State government, he said that it was meant for bed and ventilator charges. “But there would be charges that might be added by private hospitals, like for example someone who has comorbidities and requires additional tests, and specialist consultation or cost of medicines,” he added.
When asked about Kerala’s approach towards managing Covid-19 crisis being praised by many, Eatala said: “Like Telangana, even Kerala has not been testing asymptomatic patients and following ICMR guidelines, only symptomatic patients are being tested there.” The fact that Kerala has higher education levels also helped them, the Minister added. However, he pointed out that Hyderabad, where most of the cases are being recorded in Telangana, has densely populated places like Addagutta, Talabkatta and tenements along Musi river, which increase risk of infection.
More tests per day
Referring to the recent halting of samples collection for Covid- 19 testing due to less testing capacity, the Health Minister said that testing capacity will soon be increased to 6,600 tests per day. At present, around 5,500 tests are being conduced per day, which include those conducted at various labs in Hyderabad, 400 tests at KMC and 200 tests at RIMS Adilabad. The 1,100 additional testing capacity would be added in Nalgonda, Suryapet and Nizamabad districts, the Minister informed.
Minister Eatala also informed that the State received 450 ventilators from the Central government though it had placed an order for 1,000 ventilators. These will be send to various government hospitals though majority of them will be at Gandhi Hospital, he added. Meanwhile, the Minister questioned the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for first discouraging rapid antibody tests and later promoting it with a list of kits developed by a certain group of companies.
“Telangana would not be testing using the rapid antibody testing kits like some other states as these tests do not give accurate results”, he said. Lack of special quarantine rules for travellers to Telangana from other states, especially from high-risk states like Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, by air as well as road, has been a major issue raised by many. The Minister responded to the issue by saying that all travellers showing symptoms are being quarantined in designated private and gove r n m e n t - r un facilities. Recruitment for TIMS Referring to the criticism over the government’s plan to recruit doctors for Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences on contract basis, he said the recruitment of permanent of staff will be taken up at a later stage either through the TSPSC or MHSRB. “That process will take some time, but as there was necessity to immediately recruit the staff, the government decided to hire them on contract basis for now.”