Pvt hospitals to treat Corona patients from Thu

Owing to a surge of Covid-19 cases in India and a possible threat of community transmission, the government has roped in private hospitals in its fight against the virus and directed them to begin admissions. So far, these institutions only played a role in collecting throat swab samples for the suspected Covid-19 patients and advise them to home quarantine while awaiting test results. Earlier,
on March 23, the government had asked private hospitals to gear up for treating Covid-19 by earmarking separate isolation wards.

While admissions in these private hospitals begins tomorrow, they still don’t have permission from Indian Council of Medical Research for testing. 

“There is a lot of confusion as right now the approvals for testing are coming very slowly,” stated a medical superintendent of a private hospital. “We take a swab and a form is filled. This is sent to a government hospital, which gives a go-ahead to collect the sample. Then we collect. There is a first screening report and after another okay, we get a confirmatory report. All this takes six hours to four days. We cannot do this tedious process if numbers increase.”