Hyderabad: Telangana High Court on Thursday expressed its anguish over the functioning of private hospitals over treating of the COVID-19 patients. A bench of Chief Justice Telangana Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Vijay Sen Reddy directed the Government to take harsh action against those erring private hospitals that are not complying the Government orders for treating corona patients.
The court in its directions had asked the Government to submit a detailed report about those hospitals especially Apollo Hospitals and Basavatarakam Indo American Cancer Institute who are enjoying several privileges of land leasing at concessional rates.
The court directed the Government to furnish details about how many poor (BPL) corona patients have been treated at the two hospitals for free of cost.
In its directions the court had asked the Government to take a stock of the lapses of private hospitals in providing treatment to the public. It has also asked the state establish a grievance cell under the supervision of Chief Secretary Telangana for monitoring the pandemic situation in the state.
The Chief secretary Telangana Somesh Kumar for the second time had virtually appeared before the High Court and informed court that as many as 50 hospitals have been issued show cause notices, upon which 16 have filed their replies while the permission of two hospitals to treat COVID patients has been cancelled.
He also informed court that Government is presently conducting 17,000 tests per million and its aiming to increase by 40,000 as per the decision of the state cabinet.