Waking up to the reality that the number of positive cases and deaths due to Coronavirus is going up steeply in Telangana, the state government has finally decided to allow private labs to test the suspected patients and private hospitals to give treatment to the positive patients.
On Monday, the state government announced the rates to be charged by the private labs and private hospitals from the Corona patients.
According to health minister Eatala Rajender, the government would allow designated private laboratories to conduct tests for Covid-19, but as against the market price of Rs 5,000 per test, the private labs in Telangana cannot charge more than Rs 2,200 per test.
Similarly, the bed charges in private hospitals, including corporate hospitals cannot exceed Rs 4,000 per day in normal wards, Rs 7,500 in Intensive Care Units (ICU) without ventilator and Rs 9,000 with ventilator.
He said tests would be done as per ICMR guidelines and any suspected patient can undergo test. However, not all positive cases don’t have to get admitted to the hospitals.
The asymptomatic patients who test positive would have to be under home quarantine only, unless they develop severe symptoms.
KCR on Sunday night announced that in the next one week to ten days, the health department will conduct tests on 50,000 people in 30 Assembly constituencies in and around the capital city.
The health minister said the private labs also should not unnecessarily conduct tests for everybody which don’t have symptoms.
“As far as possible, people could get tested in government labs if they have any symptoms. If they really want to go to private labs, it is their wish,” he said.
The minister, however, said the private hospitals could collect additional charges for anti-viral drugs when the patients are on ventilator. Some anti-viral injections would cost up to Rs 50,000. These private hospitals would have to upload the information about the tests and treatment on the health department portal, he said.
