IMA drafts fee structure for pvt. hospitals in T.N.

IMA drafts fee structure for pvt. hospitals in T.N.

Decision on price cap soon, say government officials

04/06/2020, SERENA JOSEPHINE M.,CHENNAI

The Tamil Nadu State Branch of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has drawn up a fee structure for COVID-19 treatment at private hospitals. With the Health Department having announced that it will fix a price cap for treatment in the private sector, the association has urged the department to hold discussions on the issue before finalising the fee structure.

The Health Department had decided to come up with a price cap for COVID-19 treatment at private hospitals following complaints that they were collecting exorbitant charges from patients. Officials said a decision on the fee structure would be announced soon.

C.N. Raja, State president, IMA-TN, said the government had received complaints about excessive charges being levied by private hospitals, while a few individuals had even filed court cases on the issue. “Following this, IMA was called for a meeting with the Health Secretary, during which we sought two to three days’ time for coming up with estimates. We drew up a cost structure, keeping the charges low, and sent it to the government. We are yet to be called for a discussion,” he said.

The IMA had proposed a fee of ₹2,31,820 for treatment at COVID Centres/COVID Health Care Centres (for persons with mild to moderate symptoms) for 10 days. This covered hospital charges including accommodation, equipment and administrative charges, pharmacy, consumables and investigation. The doctors’ consulting charges as well as quarantine and food expenses for doctors and other staff working in designated COVID centres were not included. The latter may work out to ₹9,600 a day.

For COVID Health Care Hospitals/ICU treatment (for persons with severe symptoms), the amount fixed was ₹4,31,311 for 17 days. Again, this excluded consulting charges and other expenses.

‘In line with protocols’

“We have arrived at the amount, keeping in mind the protocols laid down by the State government for a COVID-19 set-up. This is in line with the duty hours stipulated by the government, investigations to be [under]taken, and medications and diet to be provided to patients,” Mr. Raja said.

It was not advisable for small and medium hospitals to admit COVID-19 patients as the infrastructure and manpower would not be adequate, he said, adding, “There are costs involved in running hospitals. The fee structure that we have arrived at covers corporate hospitals.”

Fill a form before boarding bus

Fill a form before boarding bus

04/06/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,TIRUNELVELI

Passengers filling up forms at the new bus stand in Tirunelveli on Wednesday. A. SHAIKMOHIDEEN

Following people not keeping physical distancing in buses proceeding to Nagercoil, the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation has imposed some restrictions.

When the State government allowed public transport by operating 50% of the buses to various destinations on Monday, the Kanniyakumari district administration did not allow any of these buses to enter the district on the first day. On the second day (Tuesday), though these buses were allowed to enter the district, the passengers were taken to a screening camp at Arignar Anna Arts College at Aralvaimozhi close to the Tirunelveli – Kanniyakumari border.

On the third day, the restrictions were imposed in Tirunelveli bus stand itself. When the passengers came to the new bus stand to board the buses going to Nagercoil, they were asked to produce a document to prove their identity while the government employees had to produce their official identity card. They were asked to fill in forms to furnish name, address, reason for travel, recent travel history, home isolation – if any, COVID-19 symptoms – if any, ailments – if any etc., before boarding. “The restrictions will be in place until the pandemic scare subsides,” said a TNSTC official.

NASS award for Ganga Hospital research team

NASS award for Ganga Hospital research team

04/06/2020, STAFF REPORTER ,COIMBATORE

A research team of Coimbatore-based Ganga Hospital has won the Outstanding Paper Award of the North American Spine Society (NASS) in basic science category for 2020. The research was a molecular level study probing the cause for lumbar disc degeneration, main cause of lower back pain, and attempts to identify molecular targets for biological repair of damaged discs.

The research, “Uncovering molecular targets for regenerative therapy in degenerative disc disease: Do Small Leucine-Rich Proteoglycans hold the Key?” won the award, instituted by NASS and the society’s official research publication The Spine Journal. The study gains significance as lower back pain significantly reduces quality of life of nearly 70% of the patients worldwide. said the research team head S. Rajasekaran, chairman, Department of Orthopaedic and Spine Surgery at Ganga Hospital.

Work on new campus for Theni law college begins

Work on new campus for Theni law college begins

The 14-acre facility will come up on an outlay of ₹89.01 cr.

04/06/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,THENI

Bhoomi puja being performed for construction of buildings at Theni Government Law College on Wednesday.

With a view to meeting the growing demand for law courses, the State government had proposed to open three more law colleges, said Law Minister C.Ve. Shanmugam here on Wednesday.

He was participating in a bhoomi puja ceremony for constructing new buildings for Theni Government Law College, in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, Collector M. Pallavi Baldev, MP O.P. Raveendranath Kumar, MLAs Thalapathi and S.T.K. Jakkayan.

Mr. Shanmugam said the number of students appearing for the CLAT (common law admission test) was rising. In July 2019, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced in the Assembly that law colleges would be opened in Salem, Namakkal and Theni.

In last August, the first batch of students was admitted. With the opening of the Theni college, the State had 14 law colleges.

The Theni college offers three-year and five-year programmes with an intake of 80 each.

The college, which is functioning on a private school campus on the Dindigul-Kumuli highway, will move to the new campus on 14 acres with 26 classrooms, hostels for boys and girls, state-of-the-art auditorium with 400 seats, moot-court hall, conference hall, library, video conferencing and and Wi-Fi facilities on an estimate of ₹89.01 crore.

In his address, the Deputy CM exuded hope that the good educational infrastructure in the hinterland would attract more students from the rural areas.

Nation’s name plea can be sent to Centre: SC

Nation’s name plea can be sent to Centre: SC

“Bharat and India are both in the Constitution’

04/06/2020, KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL,NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that a plea to change India’s name exclusively to ‘Bharat’ be converted into a representation and forwarded to the Union government for an appropriate decision.

“Bharat and India are both names given in the Constitution. India is already called ‘Bharat’ in the Constitution”, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde orally said in a virtual court hearing.

The petioner, Namah, through his counsel, said ‘India’ is a name of foreign origin. The name can be traced back to the Greek term ‘Indica’.

The counsel said, “The word ‘Bharat’ is closely associated to our Freedom Struggle. The cry was ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.”

The court said the petition be transformed into a representation and forwarded to the Ministries, primarily the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The petition seeks an amendment to Article 1 of the Constitution, which says “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States...”. It wants ‘India’ to be struck off from the Article. “This will ensure citizens of this country to get over the colonial past and instil a sense of pride in our nationality. Will also justify the hard fought freedom by our freedom fighters”, it said.

The court had dismissed a similar petition in 2016. Then CJI T.S. Thakur had said that every Indian had the right to choose between calling his country ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’.

HCQ clinical trials will resume: WHO

HCQ clinical trials will resume: WHO

The Lancet says it has concerns about article on use of drug in COVID-19 patients

04/06/2020, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS,GENEVA/NEW YORK

Hydroxychloroquine has anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties .REUTERS

The World Health Organisation said on Wednesday that clinical trials of the drug hydroxychloroquine will resume, after having been suspended pending a safety review in the search for coronavirus treatments.

“On the basis of the available mortality data... the executive group will communicate with the principal investigators in the trial about resuming the hydroxychloroquine arm,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news briefing.

Concerns about data

British medical journal The Lancet said on Tuesday that it had concerns about data behind an influential article that found that HCQ increased the risk of death in COVID-19 patients, a conclusion that undercut scientific interest in the medicine championed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hydroxychloroquine — which has anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties — inhibited the coronavirus in laboratory experiments, but has not been proven effective in humans, particularly in placebo-controlled, randomised clinical trials considered the gold standard for data. The debate has become highly politicised, and many scientists have voiced concern.

Open letter

Nearly 150 doctors signed an open letter to The Lancet last week calling the article’s conclusions into question and asking to make public the peer review comments that preceded publication.

“This is not some sideshow or minor issue,” said Walid Gellad, a Professor at University of Pittsburgh’s medical school, who was not a signatory of the letter but has been critical of the study. “We’re in an unprecedented pandemic. We’ve organised these enormous clinical trials to figure out if something works. And this study stopped or paused a couple of those trials, and changed the narrative around a drug that no one knows if it works or not,” he said.

The study, using data provided by healthcare data analytics firm Surgisphere, was not a traditional clinical trial that would have compared hydroxychloroquine to a placebo or other medicine.

The Lancet’s editors said in a note that serious scientific questions about the study were brought to their attention and an independent audit of the data has already been commissioned.

Row over death of pregnant elephant in Kerala

Row over death of pregnant elephant in Kerala

It was reported that it died after biting a pineapple filled with explosives

04/06/2020, STAFF REPORTER,PALAKKAD

Policemen standing on the banks of the Velliyar as the body of the elephant is retrieved.Special arrangementSpecial arrangement

The death of a pregnant elephant in a stream at Thiruvizhamkunnu, near Mannarkkad, in Kerala’s Palakkad district on May 27 has erupted into a huge controversy, with a section of the national media and their social media arms branding it an act of human cruelty.

The elephant death came to light two days ago when a forest officer wrote about it in a Facebook post.

The elephant was found to be sick and had waded into the Velliyar stream near Thiruvizhamkunnu forest station under the Mannarkkad forest division. It spent more than two days in the stream, often coming to the shore for brief while. Forest officers tried to save it using a kumki elephant. However, the pachyderm succumbed to its injuries before the kumki reached it.

An autopsy revealed that the elephant was pregnant and its jaw bone was broken. The death was due to asphyxia, as a result of water entering its lungs and trachea.

However, it was presumed that the elephant died after biting a pineapple allegedly filled with explosives. Following the Facebook post, news spread that the elephant had been fed by the people with the intention of killing it.

“We suspect the elephant fell prey to an explosive snare used to fend off wild boars. But there is no evidence to indicate it was intentional,” said K.K. Sunil Kumar, Mannarkkad Divisional Forest Officer.

Forest officers said there was no proof of the elephant having eaten the explosive-filled pineapple. But it is a practice among some farmers living in the forest fringes to use such explosive-snare to kill wild boars. A detailed report of the autopsy is expected soon.

The State government has ordered a high level inquiry. Forest officers indicated that they had information about some people who could be suspected in the case.