Private hospitals in Bengaluru can't charge over Rs 200 for vaccine service

The different prices charged by private hospitals for Covid vaccination have left citizens in the lurch. A dose of Covishield (minimum procurement price Rs 600) costs anywhere between Rs 850 and Rs 1,050.

On February 27, the Centre had capped the service charge at Rs 100 and the cost of vaccine dose per person at Rs 150, meaning private hospitals cannot charge more than Rs 250 over and above the procurement price of the vaccine. Karnataka, however, capped it at Rs 200, according to an order issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday night.

The order came after the Private Hospitals' and Nursing Homes' Association (PHANA) requested Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan, who heads the state's Covid task force, to allow hospitals to charge Rs 300 citing the expenditure on cold chain and logistics.

For example, for the Sputnik V vaccine, which has to be maintained at -20 degrees celsius in special refrigerators, Apollo Hospitals charges Rs 1,250 per dose (procurement price Rs 995, service charge Rs 255).

The lack of uniform pricing is making the vaccine unaffordable for low and middle-income families.

Speaking to DH, Dr H M Prasanna, president, PHANA, said the extra charges were meant to cover "all our costs of storage, on-site set-up, PPE, disposables, disinfection protocols, and prevent pilferage".

He explained that PHANA cannot ask member hospitals to charge uniformly because each facility would have procured the vaccine at a different price depending on the quantity it would have ordered.

For example, Sparsh Hospital procured Covishield at Rs 650 per dose and charges Rs 850. Kanva Diagnostics charges Rs 1,000 while Mallige Hospital charges Rs 1,050 for a dose of the same vaccine. Suguna Hospital procured Covaxin for Rs 1,050 and administers it at Rs 1,250.

The vaccination drive at Vasavi Hospital, Kumaraswamy Layout, said to be supported by Bangalore South parliamentarian L S Tejasvi Surya, costs Rs 900 per dose of Covishield.

Surya's office earlier said in a statement to DH: "The vaccine price is decided and charged by the nursing homes involved in the drive. The MP's office has no role to play in this."

Surya tweeted on Thursday night that the state government had fixed the maximum (extra) cost chargeable per dose at Rs 200, four days after he had written to Dr Ashwath Narayan to standardise the administration charges across the city.