By IT Correspondent
Thane, June 8:
Two hospitals, designated as COVID-19 facilities, in Maharashtra’s Thane district were fined Rs one lakh per patient for violating regulations laid down by the state government, a senior civic official said on Sunday.
Thane Deputy Municipal Commissioner Vishwanath Kelkar said the two hospitals were given several warnings before the fines were imposed under the Maharashtra COVID-19 Rules and the Epidemic Diseases Act 1897 (as amended).
“The two hospitals were for critical COVID-19 patients and not ones who were asymptomatic or showed mild symptoms. They also kept patients for durations longer than prescribed. The two hospitals have been fined Rs 1 lakh per patient, which added up to Rs 13 lakh for one hospital and Rs 3 lakh for the other,” Kelkar said.
As per notification issued by Maharashtra government, private and charitable hospitals can charge up to R 4,000 for general ward and isolation, Rs 7,500 for ICU( without ventilator and
isolation), and Rs 9,000 for ICU with ventilator and isolation. The services include nursing and bed charges, drugs consultation, tests like 2D Echo, X ray, bed charges among others. However these hospitals were found to be charging much more and were also adding up the cost of other accessories like PPEs indiscriminately.
A few days back, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) had also issued an advisory to all the private hospital in Thane treating COVID-19 patients to charge as per the TMC rate cards, since the health department had received several complaints from COVID-19 patients about the high rate charged to by the hospitals.
In response to the complaints of over charging, the TMC has formed a committee to observe the hospitals charging unnecessarily. The private hospitals are supposed to display the rate cards prominently in the hospital. The committee is empowered to inquire about the complaints related to bills and shortage of beds etc. If any hospital is found guilty for such type of complaints, then the hospital management should be ready to face action that will be taken by committee, , TMC PRO Sandeep Malvi said.
The designated private hospitals for COVID-19 treatment include: Vedant (Ghodbunder road), Horizan Prime hospital, (Ghodbunder road), Kaushalya hospital (Panchpakhadi), Bethani hospital (Varta nagar), Thane health care (Naupada), Sapphire hospital (Kalwa) and Kalsekar hospital in Mumbra. In the meanwhile 2012 patients are under treatment, while 1670 patients have been discharged in Thane.