Amid complaints of lack of beds in private hospitals across Mumbai as Covid-19 infections continue to surge, civic body commissioner, Iqbal Singh Chahal attributed the shortage to the rules laid down by insurance companies.
As per a report by The Economic Times, after several complaints from citizens that they were facing difficulty in finding hospital beds in private hospitals, the BMC Commissioner checked with hospitals and found that people with mild Covid symptoms were getting admitted to private hospitals and were taking Molnupiravir drug treatments.
Chahal told ET that these patients are getting admitted to for a day or two and area getting discharged, we have asked hospitals to get these people treated at Outpatient Departments (OPDs). “The private hospitals have told us that the health insurance companies have a rule that only patients admitted for at least a day can be considered for releasing insurance payments,” he added. These admissions are creating an issue and beds are being blocked by non-serious patients, I will decide to take the matter to these insurance companies to allow payments to even those being treated in OPDs, he further mentioned.
The civic body is also mulling banning the sale of home test kits for Covid as authorities are fearing undercounting of cases. Manufacturing companies have sold lakhs of such self-testing kits and the civic administration is concerned that if there are any positive cases then the civic body may not be able to track them. While RT PCR tests conducted by laboratories have to send the positive test report to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, the civic body has no way to find the results of the home tests kits.
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Mumbai on Sunday reported 19,474 COVID-19 cases and seven fatalities, taking the city’s tally of infections to 9,14,572 and the toll to 16,406. A day earlier the city had reported 20,318 coronavirus infections and five deaths. Of the 19,474 cases reported on Sunday, 15,969 (82 per cent) are asymptomatic.
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