A four- member committee to be formed to ensure that the Covid-patients are not overcharged

Jaipur : Just after issuing an order for the reservation of beds (25%) in the private hospitals, on Wednesday, the health department gave direction to the committee at the district level to make sure that the patients are not overcharged for the treatment of Covid.

The four–member committee that the state government has constituted constitutes of the additional district magistrate, who is nominated by the district collector; chief medical health officer, and specialists in medicine and anesthesia. This committee is entrusted with the duty of ensuring that the private hospitals do not charge much for the treatment of Covid patients. Siddharth Mahajan, the health secretary opined, “The committee will ensure that complaints should resolve within seven days”.

The health department has already finalized the charges related to beds in ICU, general ward beds, and diagnostic tests and has ordered the private hospitals to charge the patients on that basis.

The health department has ordered the deployment of IAS and RAS officers as nodal officers at private hospitals to ensure that the patients are given treatment without any complaints of refusal.

It is the responsibility of the nodal officer to make sure that the private hospitals have a sufficient amount of oxygen, beds with oxygen facilities, and availability of beds for the Covid patients. The orders for the deployment of nodal officers were announced just after the health department issued an order to reserve 25% beds among 60- beds and more than 60-bed hospitals for treating Covid patients.

The work of the nodal officers is to make sure that the patients whom the helpline 181 and the district administration have referred should get a bed in the private hospitals for their treatment.