From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Aug 21: As many as 577 private hospitals have been served notices for excessive billing and collecting money from Covid-19 patients and also from government, Health and Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said indicating that steps have been taken to ensure that Rs 1,58,22,359 collected from 404 patients has been refunded to the families of the patients.
Giving details of the steps taken by the Health and Family Welfare Department following complaints received from the public over excessive billing by private hospitals for treating the Covid-19 patients, Dr Sudhakar on Sunday said this is a stern warning to the private hospitals.
Talking to media persons here, the minister said the State Government had already taken steps to provide treatment to the Covid-19 patients in private hospitals under the Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka Scheme on a referral basis. The scheme was implemented to help the Covid-19 patients and their expenses were borne by the Suvarna Aroyga Trust.
However, the minister said some hospitals had collected money from the Trust and also collected the treatment cost from the patients.
Dr Sudhakar said he had directed the Department to issue notices to the private hospitals and examine the complaints.
Notices have been issued to 577 private hospitals so far, he said indicating that the private hospitals had collected a total of Rs 18.87 crore of excess amount. Of this amount, Rs 1.58 crore has already been refunded to the families of the patients so far, he said.
He said the some of the complaints have been referred to the concerned district grievances disposal committee for further examination.
The minister said the State Government has reimbursed a total of Rs 391.26 crore from March 2020 to March 2021 during the first wave of the Covid-19 and another Rs 376.76 crore during the second wave between April 2021 and December 2021. A sum of Rs 11.80 crore has been reimbursed during the third wave from January 2022 to March 31, 2022, he said.
Eggs thrown at Siddu by Congressmen
Dr Sudhakar claimed that Congressmen themselves had thrown eggs and held black flag demonstration against Congress Opposition leader in the Assembly Siddaramaiah out of their anger at his statement against Savarkar.
He, however, condemned the hurling of eggs and black flag demonstration against the former chief minister and said the State Government has taken immediate action on the issue. "It has become a habit and weakness of Congress leaders to speak ill of RSS and Veer Savarkar,’’ he said and asked the Congress leaders to mend their ways.
The minister said the people will not tolerate Congress leaders speaking against the majority community, he said.
The Janotsava programme, which was originally scheduled to be held on July 28 at Doddaballapura to mark the first year anniversary of Basavaraj Bommai rule and was cancelled following the wrath of the BJP workers over the murder of Praveen Nettaru in Sullia of the coastal Dakshina Kannada district, and subsequently scheduled to be held on August 28, would now be held on September 8. As many as 2 to 3 lakh people are expected to participate, he added.