More private hospitals in Telangana clamour for Covid care nod

Hyderabad: Notwithstanding the decline in coronavirus cases except for a few districts where the numbers are steady though not out of control, private hospitals are queuing up to get permission from the health department to treat virus-infected patients. As of Monday, 228 private hospitals are admitting corona positive patients. The list has more than doubled in a span of two months.

Private hospitals were allowed to treat corona patients based on court orders from June onwards and the list of hospitals was just about 100 until August. Cases were peaking at that time in the State with districts also reporting a high number apart from GHMC limits. Earlier, most of these private hospitals treating corona patients were confined to GHMC limits with only a few from districts. However, presently, more hospitals from districts have joined the list so much so that they comprise two-thirds of the total list. Apart from private hospitals in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medchal districts, private hospitals from 15 more districts are treating coronavirus cases. The list includes hospitals from Adilabad, Jagtial, Jangaon, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahbubnagar, Mancherial, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Peddapalli, Rajanna-Sircilla, Sangareddy, Siddipet, Warangal Urban and Warangal Rural.

With more private hospitals getting permission from the health department to treat patients, bed strength has also gone up considerably. More than 9,150 beds are made available for infected patients to get treatment. However, almost 70 to 75 per cent of beds are remaining vacant for the last few weeks.

Indian Medical Association national vice-president Dr T Narsinga Reddy, who has his hospital in Warangal, stated that beds were remaining vacant now in most of the hospitals due to change in treatment pattern and drop-in patients number requiring hospital admission.

"As soon as people are getting diagnosed with the virus, doctors are starting treatment right away and it is yielding results. So, there is no necessity for hospitalisation. Earlier 5 per cent of patients used to fall critical, now it is less than one per cent," he said.