The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday issued the list of capped charges for coronavirus treatment in private hospitals, noting that a violation of these rules will lead to stringent action. "Please report grievances, if any, pertaining to hospitals charging rates over and above the fixed price caps and any other complaints related to Covid at 1902," said an official.
The state government issued these price caps under critical and non-critical COVID treatment, which include fees for medical personnel, PPE, disinfection, investigation, medicines, nutrition and others. COVID-19 treatment rate per day under non-critical category has been fixed at Rs 3,250.
However, treatment charges under critical care treatment has been divided under six heads: ICU without ventilator and without NIV (Rs 5,480 per day), ICU with NIV (Rs 5,480), ICU with NIV (Rs 5,980), ICU with ventilator (Rs 9,580), Sepsis without ventilator (Rs 6,280), Sepsis with ventilator (Rs 10,380) and Septic with ventilator (Rs 10,380). One dose of antiviral drug Remdesivir has been capped at Rs 2,500. These treatment charges apply to all private hospitals not empanelled under the Aarogyasri scheme.
"The Jagan government has issued an order fixing rates for all relevant medical procedures so as to reduce the financial burden on the people," the official added. Given the notorious legacy of profiteering private hospitals, an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Abhishek Mohanty, has been dedicatedly tasked with the job of monitoring complaints about private hospitals and particularly on the crime of excessive treatment charges.
Andhra Pradesh on Thursday reported 5,086 new COVID-19 cases, raising the tally over 9.39 lakh, while the state's active cases breached the 31,000-mark to reach 31,710. The state ran out of COVID-19 vaccine stock after carrying out a massive vaccination drive on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, state health officials administered a record 6,28,961 vaccine doses across the state, and on Thursday, 28,677 vaccine doses were administered. State Immunisation Officer (SIO) Srihari told TNM that the state has requested more vaccine stock, and the Union Health Ministry is expected to disburse around 5 lakh Covishield vaccine doses on Friday.
Read: