Centre Sends 10 Teams To Private Hospitals In Delhi Amid Covid Spike

KEY STORY

• New Delhi: The centre has formed 10 multi-disciplinary teams to visit Delhi’s private hospitals that are treating COVID-19 patients to check the status of compliance of directions issued by the Health Ministry for containing the spread of the virus.

• The Home Ministry in an order said the teams will start their visit immediately and within two days will submit their reports along with specific details as per the terms of reference of the ministry.

• The multi-disciplinary teams were set up after Sunday’s high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah to monitor recent spike in coronavirus cases in Delhi.

• An additional team has also been formed and kept as reserve. The teams were given the task of visiting 114 private hospitals that are treating COVID-19 patients.

• According to the terms of reference, the multi-disciplinary teams will look into whether in the visited private hospitals, the availability of wards and ICU beds are as per the Delhi government orders.

CONCLUSION

• Whether such availability is being displayed on a real-time basis by the hospital through LED and through “corona dashboard” of the Delhi government and whether private hospitals are thoroughly observing COVID-19 discharge policy as mandated by the central government.

• The other terms of reference include RT-PCR testing capacity, if available; capacity utilised and turnaround time of test report; whether critical patients are being referred to other government or private hospitals without ascertaining the availability in those hospitals, and if there is any other violation in treatment protocols.