Make corona treatment cost reasonable: Centre to states; recovery rate further improves
New Delhi: Following reports of overcharging by private healthcare providers for COVID-19 treatment, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked the states and Union Territories to engage with the private healthcare providers and work out a reasonable cost.
“In order to ensure that patients receive prompt, good quality and care at reasonable rates, it has been suggested to States to have consultations with the local private healthcare providers and arrive at reasonable rates, while factoring in cost elements for personal safety equipments for healthcare providers," the communique read.
The ministry further said that once the rates are fixed, they must be widely publicized, so that the infrastructural capacities are used optimally.
"States have also been asked to proactively engage with the private sector health providers and consider pooling in public and private healthcare facilities, as this will help in providing prompt, good quality and reasonable health care to COVID-19 patients," health ministry said.
Another 10K cases on Tuesday
India has added another 10,000+ cases to its coronavirus tally on Tuesday even as the recovery rate of patients continued to rise. Till Tuesday morning, 52.46 per cent of the positive patients have been discharged, which is over 1.38 per cent point higher than Monday. A total of 1,80,012 patients have been cured of COVID-19 till now while 1,53,178 cases are still under medical supervision.
India has so far logged in 3,43,091 lakh cases, out of which 10,667 were fresh. The number of new deaths were 380 taking the total death toll to 9,900.
Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu continued to register high number of cases and about 75 per cent of total cases in India are reported from these 3 states alone.
Of the 380 new deaths, Maharashtra accounted for the highest 178 fatalities followed by Delhi at 73, Tamil Nadu at 44, Gujarat 28, Haryana 12, West Bengal 10, Rajasthan nine and Madhya Pradesh six.
Andhra Pradesh and Punjab have reported four fatalities each, Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka three each, Telangana two and Bihar, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala one each.
Maharashtra recovery rate improving, TN to be shutdown
Even though cases in Maharashtra continue to increase, the recovery rate too is improving. On Monday, Maharashtra discharged 5,071 COVID-19 patients while in Mumbai 4242 persons got cured. The recovery rate in Maharashtra is now 47 per cent.
State chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has decided to allow opening of schools physically in rural areas. Mumbai's suburban train services too will resume from Tuesday but only for the staff of state government.
In view of rising cases, Tamil Nadu government has announced a complete lockdown in places like Chennai, Thiruvallur, Chengalpet, and Kancheepuram from June 19 to 30. Delhi, however, is still not going to be shut down, its chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said. Incidentally, Delhi is reporting highest increases for the last few days.
Railways swings into action
Meanwhile, Railways has so far deployed 204 isolation coaches in four states. Officials said Railways will insulate the roofs of these isolation coaches deployed in areas which experience high temperatures to make their interiors cooler and more comfortable for patients since all isolation wards are non-AC coaches.
For Delhi, at least 50 coaches with 800 beds have already been stationed at Shakur Basti railway station but none of them are in use so far. Another 500 more such isolation coaches for Covid-19 patients will be deployed in Delhi. In order to combat shortage of beds, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana are exploring the possibility of using such coaches.
