UP government puts cap on treatment of Covid-19 in all private hospitals

LUCKNOW/GHAZIABAD/NOIDA: The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday issued a price-list for treatment of Covid-19 patients in private hospitals amid complaints that many of them were charging arbitrarily.
For operative purposes, the order has divided UP cities into three categories and provided rates for Category A cities. The order mentions that cost in B category cities will be 80% of the treatment cost in Category-A cities and 60% in Category C cities.

Private hospitals with NABH accreditation in category A can charge Rs 10,000 per isolation from patients suffering with moderate degree of illness. A cost of Rs 15,000 has been fixed for an ICU bed and Rs 18,000 per day from patients needing ventilator support.
The cost of non-NABH hospitals in category A cities will be Rs 8,000 for isolation beds, Rs 13,000 for ICU and Rs 15,000 for ICU with ventilator support. The rates are inclusive of the cost of PPE kits.
The government also stated that 20% beds in select private hospitals will be reserved for government employees, including officers and Ayushman Bharat card holders. The cost of treatment in this category will be reimbursed by the government as per CGHS and Ayushman Bharat rates. The category A districts include GB Nagar, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Bareilly, Gorakhpur and Meerut. Districts on category B list are: Moradabad, Aligarh, Jhanasi, Saharanpur, Mathura, Rampur, Mirzapur, Shahjahanpur, Ayodhya, Firozabad, Muzaffarnagar and Farrukhabad. The remaining districts will fall under the category C.
Passing relevant government orders, additional chief secretary health and family welfare Amit Mohan Prasad said, “It has come to the notice that different private hospitals were levying different rates for treatment of patients with Covid-19. It is important to have uniformity in the cost of treatment in larger public interest.” Stating that the committee led by Dr Vinod Paul, member Niti Aayog, had fixed the rate of treatment for New Delhi, the order fixed rates for UP. At present, seven hospitals in Ghaziabad and four hospitals in GB Nagar have been approved by the state to provide Covid treatment. The decision to identify and list private hospitals treatment has been left to the districts administration.
Of the seven hospitals in Ghaziabad, five are in Kaushambi, Vaishali and Vasundhara while two are in Pratap Vihar and Nehru Nagar. “Private hospitals that are treating Covid cases are Yashoda Hospital in Kaushambi and a hospital in Nehru Nagar that has 30 and 55 beds respectively," said an official from the health department.
Ghaziabad district magistrate said the rate list will be pasted in each hospital and the managements have been intimated to levy charge as per the list. “In case they levy additional charges, residents can complain and strict action will be taken,” said district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey, adding that he has asked a chief development officer and an official from the health department to verify the complaints. In Noida, the four Covid hospitals are Kailash, Fortis, Jaypee and Yatharth.
District magistrate Suhas LY said, “The hospitals have been informed about the revised rates. We have enough beds to handle the demand."