Hyderabad: The State Health Department has issued show cause notices to 64 private hospitals across Telangana after receiving 88 grievances from Covid positive patients and their relatives in the last one week
These hospitals have been given two days to reply to the notices and in case of an unsatisfactory reply, stern action including withdrawing permissions to treat Covid patients, will be taken by the Health Department.
In the last one week, discharges of recovered Covid-19 patients from private hospitals has begun in Telangana, fuelling a large number of grievances related to inflated medical bills, lack of quality health services, instances of unwillingness to honour health insurance and hospitals insisting that patients deposit cash while clearing medical bills.
“Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao and IT Minister K T Rama Rao have given us clear directions to take stringent action against errant private hospitals. They have two-days to reply to our show-cause notices and if their reply is not satisfactory, then their permission to treat Covid patients will be withdrawn,” said Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr G Srinivasa Rao on Thursday.
Out of the 64 private hospitals against which complaints were lodged by patients and their attenders, 39 were from Hyderabad, 22 from Medchal-Malkajgiri district and 15 were from Ranga Reddy district.
“There are instances where we have received multiple complaints against a single hospital. Six complaints were received against a private hospital in Begumpet, five complaints about a hospital in Kachiguda, three for a private hospital in Abids etc. That’s why, we have sent multiple show cause notices to these 64 private hospitals,” he said.
Health authorities have urged people to reach out to them in case of difficulties at private hospitals. “In case of grievances, they can WhatsApp their complaints to 9154170960,” Dr Rao said.
AstraZeneca, Sputnik keen to supply vaccines
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Two vaccine manufacturing companies including AstraZeneca which manufactures Covishield in India in collaboration with Serum Institute (SI) and Russia’s Covid vaccine, Sputnik have shown interest in the global tenders floated by the State government to procure 1 crore doses of Covid vaccine.
“There is still some time left and we are hoping that more manufacturing companies will show response to the global tenders. We are anticipating that by the end of July, the availability of Covid vaccines will improve throughout the country,” Dr G Srinivasa Rao said.