The State government has directed all private hospitals to provide treatment to Covid-19 patients as per the standard operating procedure (SOP) and reserve at least 50% of their bed capacity in normal wards and ICU for treatment of Covid-19 patients.
In an order issued in this regard, health & family welfare principal secretary Amardeep Singh Bhatia said District Task Forces (DTFs) would ensure compliance of the directive. The development comes in the wake of the incidence of Covid-19 cases in the State witnessing a spike over the last few weeks, along with a similar increase in the number of such patients requiring hospitalisation.
Projections made for the number of ICU beds, oxygen-supported beds and ward beds were discussed at the State-level Covid war room and it was felt that private hospitals should reserve at least 50% of their beds for treatment of Covid-19 patients to meet the emergency requirements. The need for mobilising resources available in private hospitals to ensure effective management of Covid-19 patients was also discussed with representatives of private hospitals on May 3 and 4.
Treatment charges: The government also asked the private hospitals to keep treatment charges of Covid-19 patients reasonable, while insisting that additional charges on account of requirement for treatment of Covid-19 patients over and above the normal charges for the same service for non-Covid patients provided by the hospitals should be transparently charged and be reasonable.
The rates must be notified by the hospital authority and displayed prominently for wide visibility, it ordered.
Guidelines for screening, testing: The government has also come up with guidelines for government and private hospitals engaged in management of Covid-19 cases
As per the guidelines, all hospitals involved in the management of confirmed cases of Covid-19 should set up flu comer for screening of suspected cases of Covid-I9 and isolation facility to isolate suspected or probable cases of Covid-19 till the test result was declared.
Mentioning that all ILI & SARI cases and admitted patients should be tested as per ICMR testing policy, the government said the current guidelines could be accessed at https://www.icmr.gov.in/cteststrat.html.
The guidelines also made it mandatory to immediately test all admitted patients, irrespective of types of illness, for Covid-19 through either Rapid Antigen Test or Truenat/CBNAAT or RT-PCR in conformity with testing policy for Covid-19 issued from time to time on payment basis at the rates approved by the government, which could be downloaded from https://nagahealth.nagaland.gov.in.
The guidelines also barred laboratories and hospitals not having approval from the government and registered under ICMR from conducting Covid-19 tests, besides stipulating that the Covid-19 test report must indicate the SRF ID and must be verifiable. It was stated that testing should be in conformity with the guidelines that could be downloaded from https://www.mohfw.gov.in/ or https://www.icmr.gov.in.
It has been mandatory to maintain records and upload details of each sample collected for testing into ICMR portal for SRF ID generation and similarly upload the outcome tests. The sample copy of ICMR specimen referral form for Covid-19 can be downloaded from https:/ /nagahealth.nagaland.gov.in/pages/Covid-19-Guidelines.
Further, it has become mandatory for all approved hospitals and laboratories to submit on daily basis details of tests to respective DTF/district health authority.
Referral
The government has allowed referral of Covid patient from one hospital to another provided the patient is diagnosed/confirmed case of Covid-19, prior consent of referring-in hospital is obtained, consent of the patient is obtained and transportation facility is made available. Further, the hospital should telephonically inform the Covid-19 hospital or Covid care centre before transferring the patient and also arrange ambulance for transporting the patient.
The expenditure on transportation will be borne by the patient.
If intubated patients are to be referred, the government said transport ventilators must be provided for ventilator support.