NE HEALTH BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JUNE 6
In an effort to serve with transparency, ethics, and compassion, despite the strain that the healthcare sector is under, FICCI COVID-19 Response Task Force under the FICCI Health Services Committee, in a series of meetings, have worked on creating a rational costing framework which will allay any fears of the patients and the community about COVID treatment, a release said..
Sharing the above details, Dr. Sangita Reddy, President, FICCI, and Joint MD, Apollo Hospitals Group, on Friday said, “In these difficult times, the private healthcare sector is doing its best to serve with high standards of ethics, transparency, professional competency, and compassion”.
Dr. Alok Roy, Chair- FICCI Health Services Committee and Chairman- Medica Group of Hospitals, further shared that there is an imperative need to acknowledge that COVID treatment costs are difficult to rationalise essentially due to the unknown nature of treatment required and various comorbidities associated with it. Additionally, segregating the COVID and non-COVID patients is essential which needs huge investments in infrastructure. We have recommended these costs which may not be viable for the private sector, as we are in a national crisis and believe that it is our ethical responsibility to serve our patients with the best treatment possible at reasonable costs.
As India’s COVID infection count surges, there has been an increase in the trust deficit between the providers and the government, providers, and insurers as well as with the public at large on the issue of the cost of COVID treatment. The clinicians from India and across the globe are still grappling with defining treatment protocols for COVID-19, making it extremely difficult to recommend a treatment especially for patients with co-morbidities.
In these times of national emergency, private healthcare providers have been at the forefront of the COVID crisis, supporting the government by suggesting a strategy for COVID-19 management in the country, providing dedicated infrastructure and manpower support for COVID 19 treatment. It is prudent to point out that like all other sectors, private healthcare too has been impacted by the lockdown facing an acute financial crisis, restricted mobility of doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, absence of frontline healthcare workers and doctors owing to contacting infection on duty, unavailability of drugs and PPEs at affordable rates and a viable costing framework.
