Officials who accompanied Rajesh Tope said he was shocked to find low compliance of government orders in these hospitals. (Representational)

Maharashtra recorded 103 deaths due to Covid-19 taking the toll to 2,465 on Tuesday.

On Monday night Health Minister Rajesh Tope paid surprise visits to four private hospitals — Bombay hospital, Jaslok, Hinduja and Lilavati — to check whether the hospitals had reserved 80 per cent beds and whether they were charging patients on subsidised rates.

Officials who accompanied him said he was shocked to find low compliance of government orders in these hospitals.

On Tuesday, the state government issued a show-cause notice to all four hospitals asking why they were not working at 50 per cent of their capacity, why new rate chart was not displayed for patients, and why more than 90 per cent of beds under charity were vacant.

“Many suspected Covid-19 patients were waiting for admission due to improper allocation of Covid beds among 80 per cent beds,” the notice to the hospitals stated.

The state government issued two notifications, one on April 30 and second on May 21, asking private hospitals and nursing homes to reserve 80 per cent beds for government allocated patients. The hospitals were also asked to charge lower packages as per the state government rate-card. State health officials said none of the four hospitals that Tope visited were following the order.

“The state of Maharashtra looks up to you as state of the art facility centres which can provide affordable quality healthcare to the maximum needy citizens amidst Covid-19 pandemic,” the show-cause notice said.

When contacted Hinduja hospital spokesperson replied, “We are in adherence to all the provisions laid down by the state health regulators and are in process of replying to the notice issued.”

Dr Gautam Bhansali, from Bombay hospital, said, “In the visit, the minister said beds for Covid, non-Covid and suspected Covid patients must be displayed on a list. We made that list today.” When asked whether the hospital was following the new rate chart, he said the hospital has reduced its packages.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Mumbai recorded 1,117 new cases, it now has 42,216 Covid-19 infected cases, of them 17,213 have recovered. In Maharashtra 2,287 new cases were detected on Tuesday, taking the case load to 72,300. The number of deaths climbed in Mira-Bhayander where 10 people succumbed to coronavirus. The corporation has 29 deaths in all. In Mumbai, 49 deaths were reported taking the death toll in the city to 1,368 deaths.

Other deaths occurred in Navi Mumbai (4), Panvel (4), Raigad (6), Thane 91), Akola (3), Sangli (3), Pune (10), Solapur (5), Satara (6), Nashik (1) and Ahmednagar (1). Currently while 35097 people remain in institutional quarantine, 5.7 lakh are in home quarantine.