As Covid-19 continued to choke the hospitals, the Karnataka government on Sunday issued an order telling the private hospitals to reserve 75% of their beds for state quota days after Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said they will claim 80% of the beds.
The order came even as the private hospitals are yet to follow the previous rule of giving away 50% of the beds for the government quota and drew angry responses from managements of such hospitals.
Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) challenged the government to take over the entire hospitals. "The beds allocated to Covid patients are already full. Many are finding it difficult to get a bed due to a lack of information on availability. We have launched a signature campaign against the government order for 75% bed reservation," PHANA chief Dr Prasanna H M said.
He said a general bed costs Rs 10,000 but the private hospitals gave 50% of such beds for half the amount. "The payment from the government is still pending. How can they demand 75% of the beds, that too for the same price," he asked, noting the difficulties in making arrangements for the non-Covid patients.
He further stated that the government was not supplying either Remdesivir or oxygen to private hospitals. "The hospitals were built borrowing crores of rupees as loans. What can we do when the government fails to respond to our demands," he said.
As the number of cases has doubled in less than two weeks, the number of patients requiring ICU or oxygen facility has also gone up. On April 14, there were 506 patients in ICU which were 1,492 on Sunday.
Officials in the Health Department said there was an urgent need to ramp up bed availability. "There is a huge shortage of ICU, oxygen and ventilator beds in Bengaluru. The chief minister has instructed that the number of ventilator beds should be increased 10 times and we are preparing for the same," an official said.
As per the BBMP bed management portal, of the 8,804 beds (including private ones) allocated to patients, 7,450 were full on Sunday. Though the portal shows that 734 beds are available in private medical college hospitals and 510 in private hospitals, patients who rush to the facilities are told that there are no beds.
Hospital beds in Karnataka
Govt hospitals: 31,444
Govt Medical Colleges: 14,617
Private hospitals: 38,600
Private medical colleges: 35,766
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