The panel has also recommended regulating the prices of non-invasive oxygen cylinders.
New Delhi:
COVID-19 patients were charged “exorbitant fees” for private treatments in the absence of specific guidelines, a parliamentary panel led by Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav said in a report, adding that they could have saved lives with implementation. of a sustainable pricing model.
Yadav, chairman of the permanent parliamentary health commission, presented the report, entitled “Covid-19 pandemic outbreak and its management,” virtually on Saturday to Rajya Sabha’s president, M Venkaiah Naidu, criticizing the handling of the pandemic by the Center.
“… The cost of providing health services increased due to the absence of specific guidelines for the treatment of Covid in private hospitals as a result of which patients were charged exorbitant fees,” the committee said, cited by the PTI news agency, in its report.
“The committee is of the opinion that arriving at a sustainable pricing model for treating Covid patients could have prevented many deaths,” he added.
The panel also called on the government to provide the Covid vaccine, when available, to the poor at subsidized prices.
“… the committee recommends that the ministry collaborate with the Serum Institute of India and other vaccine manufacturers to make the vaccines readily available at an affordable price to the general public. The committee asks the ministry to subsidize the cost of the vaccine for the weakest section of the country and especially in rural areas or urban slums. The ministry must be cautious in its efforts to control cases of black marketing and vaccine shortages. “
The panel noted that the state healthcare infrastructure proved inadequate to cope with the pandemic.
“Highlighting the extremely inadequate number of hospital beds in government hospitals, the committee noted that the lack of hospital beds and inadequate ventilation facilities further complicated the effectiveness of the containment plan against the pandemic,” said a statement from press.
“As the number of cases increased, a frantic search for empty hospital beds became quite agonizing. Cases of patients being turned away from overloaded hospitals due to a lack of free beds became the new normal,” added the panel.
Calling public spending on health care “abysmally low” for a country with a population of 1.3 billion, the panel demanded that the Center should improve its investment in the public health system.
“The committee, therefore, strongly recommends that the government increase its investments in the public health system and make consistent efforts to achieve the goals of the National Health Policy of spending up to 2.5 percent of GDP in two years as the time frame set for the year 2025 is very far and public health cannot be compromised until then, “he said.
Several state governments had capped the prices of COVID-19 beds at private hospitals after allegations that they had been exorbitantly charging patients.
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