Private hospitals seek time to hand over 50% beds
They have flagged the difficulty of pending payments too, although authorities authorities say a few of them had been false claims
Although the State authorities has directed non-public hospitals to reserve 50% beds for government-referred COVID-19 sufferers, the hospital managements say it could take a few weeks to start the system as they already produce other sufferers admitted.
Members of the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) stated that officers had mentioned mattress reservation of upto 40% with them.
PHANA president Prasanna H.M. stated, “While we have no objection to reserving 50% as we had done last year, beds in most hospitals are now occupied by private COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients.” He additional added, “We will be in a position to hand them over as and when the beds fall vacant.”
More ICU beds sought
This time, the federal government has requested hospitals to embrace extra ICU and High Dependency Unit (HDU) beds within the 50% authorities quota. As of now, almost 90% of ICU beds in most hospitals are occupied. Also most hospitals do not need separate COVID-19 ICU. Due to all these points, it should take a few weeks for hospitals to hand over beds, the physician stated.
Last yr, a chilly conflict had ensued between the federal government and personal hospitals over mattress allocation. While non-public hospitals demanded that the 50% reservation must be for each authorities referred and personal walk-in sufferers, the federal government wished 50% just for government-referred sufferers. There had been situations whereby officers shut out-patient departments of a number of hospitals that didn’t adjust to the Order.
Dr. Prasanna stated PHANA had requested Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) and BBMP Commissioner Gaurav Gupta to make sure that such ‘ugly scenes’ didn’t recur this time. “We are ready to give 50% beds but allow us to hand them over in a phased manner,” he stated.
Pointing out one other problem, the physician stated even when hospitals put aside the prescribed 50% beds in a single go, there is no such thing as a readability within the Order as to how the federal government will compensate for the unoccupied beds. “Last time, we had demanded payment of at least 25% of the fixed cost per day towards each unoccupied bed. But that was not paid,” he stated.
However, Mr. Gupta stated these are all logistical points that are being addressed by the hospital mattress administration crew. “We have told the hospitals clearly that we need the beds at the earliest failing which action will be initiated. In genuine cases where beds are 100% occupied, officials will check the veracity and take a call,” he stated.
The Commissioner stated the BBMP had already began the method of referring sufferers for therapy beneath authorities quota in non-public referrals from Wednesday.
Pending payments
Most hospitals, particularly in districts are but to get their payments cleared by the federal government. Over 50% of the claims by non-public hospitals are but to be settled, heads of varied hospitals stated.
Referral of sufferers to non-public hospitals for therapy beneath authorities quota had been stopped from November first week. Dr. Prasanna stated of the over ₹600 crore claims made by non-public hospitals, solely payments to the tune of ₹260 crore had been cleared.
Officials in Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST) stated attributed the delay to detailed scrutiny of payments and alleged that some hospitals had submitted false claims.