Amid A Spike In Cases And Reports Of Overcharging, Delhi Govt May Cap COVID-19 Treatment Cost

As the number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi continue to rise alarmingly, government hospitals are running out of beds and are struggling to admit more patients. If the lack of beds wasn't bad enough, private hospitals are allegedly charging exorbitant amounts from patients, making COVID-19 treatment out of reach for the majority, including those with health insurance coverage.

AP

Amid this, the Delhi government has asked all hospitals treating COVID-19 patients to provide details of their treatment charge. Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Saturday said the government has sought fee details from all hospitals and will decide on "what to do" after overall observation.

AFP

"All the hospitals have been asked to share the rates that they are charging for COVID treatments. We will decide on what to do after observing every hospital,¡± Jain said.

This comes a day after a picture mentioning details of charges of COVID-19 treatment at Max Hospital went viral on social media with many users saying that the charges were too high for a common man. The rate card showed that the facility was charging Rs 72,000 for an ICU with ventilator.

AFP

On its part, Max Healthcare, which runs the facility, said the viral rate card did not carry "all the facts such as inclusions of routine tests, routine medicines, doctor and nurse charges". After its rate card went viral, Max Healthcare tweeted, "A picture related to the pricing of COVID treatment at Max Patparganj (stated in some tweets as Max Gurgaon) is being circulated on social media. However, it did not carry all the facts such as inclusions of routine tests, routine medicines, doctor and nurse charges, etc."

AFP

Max Healthcare also issued a statement saying that its Saket branch, which is a COVID only facility, has incurred a loss of Rs 6.5 crore.

With the highest single-day spike of 2134 on Saturday Delhi has so far recorded 38,958 COVID-19 cases. Delhi has a total of 9,647 dedicated COVID-19 beds in state-run, central and private hospitals, of these, 5,402 are occupied.

According to the Delhi government's estimates, COVID-19 cases in the national capital are likely to breach the five lakh-mark by the end of July. Around one lakh beds will be needed for patients.

BCCL

With this in mind, the Arvind Kejriwal government is planning a 10,000-bed makeshift hospital for COVID-19 patients under a sprawling tent in south Delhi.

The government has also declared small and medium multi-specialty nursing homes in the city having 10 to 49 beds as "COVID nursing homes" to increase the bed capacity for coronavirus patients, according to an official order. Only standalone exclusive eye centres, ENT centres, dialysis centres, maternity homes and IVF centres are presently exempted, the order issued on Saturday said.