Rajasthan govt sets rates for Covid-19 treatment in private hospitals

The Rajasthan government on Tuesday fixed the package fees for treatment of COVID-19 patients admitted in private hospitals of the state.

The government had fixed the treatment cost in June last year, but it was not clear what medicines and investigations were included in the package. So, revised details are being issued to avoid any confusion, an official order said.

In the order released by Principal Secretary (Health) Akhil Arora, detailed guidelines have been issued to make the treatment cost more transparent for NABL and non-NABL accredited hospitals.

For moderate sickness related to COVID-19, NABL accredited hospitals cannot charge more than Rs 5,500 per day including PPE kit charges for oxygen equipped isolated beds, whereas the non-NABL hospital charges will be Rs 5,000 per day.

For severe and very severe patients, NABL accredited hospital treatment charge has been fixed at Rs 8,250 and 9,900 respectively per day including cost of PPE kits, whereas the daily package for non-NABL hospital has been fixed at Rs 7,500 and Rs 9,000 respectively for the categories.

The hospitals can charge Rs 2,500 for the body and carriage while detailed guidelines can be seen on the health department website, the order stated.

The state government has released standard guidelines and procedures for addressing the issues and complaints received on the chief minister's helpline number 181 to ensure issues can be resolved in a time-bound manner.

The principal secretary also directed district collectors to provide ventilators and oxygen concentrators to authorised private hospitals, if they are available, after being set up at government hospitals so that the lives of patients can be saved.

He has asked the collectors to ensure that no charge is levied on the patients by private hospitals, if such a facility is provided.

Rajasthan on Monday had recorded 160 fatalities and 16,487 new COVID-19 cases, taking the death toll to 5,825 and infection tally to 7,73,194.