Shortage of beds: Govt now plans to rope in hotels in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: Employees of some prominent hotels in Bengaluru will soon start welcoming guests not with their usual uniforms, but attired in medical gowns.
Amid the growing number of cases in the city and serious concern that there may not be enough hospital beds to provide all patients access to quality treatment, the government has launched discussions with major hoteliers to turn their premises into Covid-19 Care Centres (CCC) for patients with mild to moderate symptoms.If everything goes to plan, these hotels will be tagged with the closest private hospital.
Officials said the government is contemplating fixing separate tariff for these hotels on the lines of rates fixed for private hospitals.
Officials say given the rate of infection, about 10,000 beds may be required by the end of the week and private hospitals can offer only about 2,500. Now, about 2,250 hotels with more than 50 rooms have been identified and while some have embraced the idea and launched preparations, others are hedging their bets.
“We have been asked to negotiate with hotels and take them on board,” said Dr Ravindra, president of Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association of Karnataka. “The hitch, however, is that many hotels are unwilling to participate, while there is no clarity on tariff. The government has to come up with clear-cut guidelines.”
While the government has fixed a two-slab tariff for private hospitals that ranges from Rs 5,200 to Rs 25,000 a day per patient depending on the category of treatment and severity of infection, it wants to apply the same measure for hotels as well.
However, hotel managements say a uniform tariff will not work and are demanding rates commiserate with facilities and the category of hotel — budget, threestar and five-star. Hotel owners also want the government to ensure a minimum 80% occupancy, otherwise, they say, it would unviable to run the hotel.
Many say they have had a bitter experience when they offered their rooms as institutional quarantine facilities. “The government is yet to come clear on these demands,” said PC Rao, president, Bengaluru City Hoteliers Association.
The government, however, isn’t budging and officials said The Disaster Management Act would be invoked if necessary in order to hotels on board. “For now, we have left it to hospitals and hotels to decide on a workable model,” said tourism director KN Ramesh. “If there is no cooperation from hotels, the government will intervene and fix tariffs for different categories of hotels, if needed.”
While some hotel owners and managements, who are reeling from the effects of the lockdown, are happy, some are fuming.
“Our biggest concern is our employees. They are afraid they could contract the virus and worse infect family members back home,” some said. “Whether they will be able to cope with stringent sanitisation norms and strict disposal of biomedical waste remains to be seen.”
Extreme sanitation protocols will have to be put in place in every single area, while a robust and stringent process to dispose of biomedical waste will also be needed.