Corona Cost For Common Man

Udit Raj Sharma

As all of us know that even private hospitals have been enrolled to treat Covid-19 patients, so the question arrises that how much will that treatment cost in these hospitals .With the kind of infrastructure and facilities required to prepare and isolateCOVID-19 infected patients, treatment in private hospitals is going to be a very costly deal for the common man. With private hospitals coming in, the number of beds significantly increases, especially ICU beds are needed the most to treat Covid-19 patients. Many hospitals in the private sector have undergone infrastructural changes just to set up separate isolation wards, apart from other necessary overhauling.

Separate isolation wards have been created for Covid-19 positive patients apart from isolation wards for Covid-19 suspects, and as per guidelines, even patients with high risk are put in separate wards. Also the medical staff was well informed about the personal protective equipment. The government of India has issued strictures for private sector hospitals to follow, as far as the treatment of pandemic is concerned, but there are no specific or particular regulations for the cost of treatment. Treatment in a general ward can cost your almost Rs 11,000 a day and in an ICU, it will cost approximately Rs 50,000 per day.

Covid-19 treatment might take up to 15 days. This means that it costs almost an amount of Rs 7,50,000 per person in any of the private hospitals.
A super specialty hospital charges approximately Rs 4,000 for a bed, add COVID-19 expenses and it will be 11,000 per day in a general ward.
– For a span of 10 days it might cost approximately Rs 1,00,000 to Rs 1,5,000 for 14 days per patient
– In ICU, cost is around Rs 20,000 for a bed
– Add expenses of PPE for medical staff and other expenses and it will cost almost 50,000 per day
– For a time period of 15 days, cost could reach up to Rs 7,50,000.
That means, a super specialty hospital seems to be out of bounds for the common man.

However, in towns, it’s the smaller hospitals and nursing homes that will play a critical role.
“Private hospital will act as booster as far as number of beds is concerned. Take an example of Delhi, it has almost 57,000 hospital beds of which almost 50 per cent is in private sector hospitals. That adds up to almost 7,000 ICU beds that are enough to cater to an emergency in the national capital. The core concern remains about the rest of India – the smaller towns and rural areas of the country,” Dr Girdhar Gyani, DG Association of Healthcare Providers India, said.

A general private hospital could be much cheaper than a super specialty and it costs from Rs 50,000 for 10 days for a general ward and about a lakh for an ICU with ventilator. There are demands that the government should step in to regulate the cost of treatment.