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Bombay HC nod to resolve standoff between Maharashtra government, private hospitals – Hindustan Times

The Bombay high court (HC) has agreed to resolve the standoff between the state government and private hospitals regarding reserving beds for Covid patients in private hospitals

By KAY Dodhiya, Mumbai

PUBLISHED ON FEB 02, 2021 11:19 PM IST

The Bombay high court (HC) has agreed to resolve the standoff between the state government and private hospitals regarding reserving beds for Covid patients in private hospitals.

The private hospitals and doctors approached the HC objecting to high-handedness of the government while fixing the charges the hospitals could recover from Covid patients and refusal to give compensation to private doctors who succumbed to Covid while treating patients privately.

The court was informed that the state had proposed to de-notify private hospitals or reduce the bed reservation to 50% and the grievance of the private hospitals could be resolved amicably, hence the court should allow the resolution to happen before it. The court accepted the same, and allowed two state government officials and two representatives of the petitioners to be present for the resolution process and posted it for Wednesday.

A division bench of justices SJ Kathawalla and Vinay Joshi, while hearing a bunch of petitions filed by private hospitals and privately practising doctors, who were represented by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), was informed by advocate SU Kamdar for IMA that private hospitals should be allowed to recover charges from Covid patients admitted to the beds that did not fall under the government reservation beds and the government should have no say in the same.

However, additional government pleader Jyoti Chavan for the state informed the bench, that on January 29 a meeting was held by the officials of the state health ministry, wherein, it was proposed that in light of the number of Covid cases going down and beds in government hospitals in every district sufficient to take care of Covid patients, it would be left to the district collectors and municipal commissioners to decide on whether to denotify private hospitals requisitioned for treating Covid patients during the height of the pandemic.

The minutes of the meeting, however, stated that as there was a shortage of intensive care units (ICU) in government hospitals, it would be better to reduce the reservation of beds in private hospitals to 50%.

However, Kamdar objected saying that there was no clarity on how to segregate patients between private and reserved beds and also the charges that could be recovered from the patients.

Chavan assured the court that the health department did not intend to fight with the private hospitals or private doctors and hence wanted to resolve the issue by clarifying all doubts, hence requested the court to hold a hearing between the officials and IMA representatives in the chamber. The court accepted the same and posted the hearing in the chamber on Wednesday at 5pm.

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Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/bombay-hc-nod-to-resolve-standoff-between-maharashtra-government-private-hospitals-101612288185052.html