Plea in HC against huge Covid bills

Plea in HC against huge Covid bills

SagarKumar.Mutha@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad:02.07.2020

Dealing with a petition that wanted the court to direct the state government to restrain private hospitals from overcharging the patients in the name of Covid-19 treatment, the Telangana high court on Wednesday gave the petitioner two weeks’ time to furnish evidence and also make the hospitals as respondents in the case.

A bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy said this while hearing a PIL filed by DG Narasimha Rao, general secretary of Patnam, an NGO working in health and environment areas. The petitioner, in his petition, annexed newspaper reports published in prominent dailies from Hyderabad, detailing how the corporate hospitals were collecting nearly Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh per day from Covid-19 patients depending on severity of the case even after the government imposed a cap in the range of Rs 4,000 to Rs 9,000 per day.

“The private and corporate hospitals are swindling patients and profiteering in the name of treating ovid-19 patients in Hyderabad and other parts of the state,” said V Mallik, counsel for the petitioner. He sought a direction to the state to take over at least 50% of beds in private, corporate and teaching hospitals and evolve a transparent web-based mechanism in allotting the beds to patients who are in need and provide treatment at the rates fixed by the government.

The judges noticed that none of the private hospitals was made as a respondent and directed the petitioner to implead them because allegations were made against them about collection of exorbitant treatment charges.

The petitioner pointed out that none of these hospitals was implementing the rates fixed by the government and charging exorbitantly. He charged that these hospitals were cashing in on the anxiety of the kin of the patients while rushing them to hospitals.

The bench posted the case to July 10.