• Meeting with Private Hospital representatives held
• List of COVID deaths from March 1 till date sought

Mysore/Mysuru: Following accusations against Private Hospitals for delay in reporting COVID related deaths, the District Health Department has instructed all Private Hospitals to compulsorily refer COVID  positive patients, who are above 40 years of age and with comorbidities to COVID Care Centres (CCCs), after triage.

That means, it is a must for Private Hospitals that have triage facility to mandatorily send patients testing positive after the swab test to CCC, if they are 40 years of age and suffering from blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments. However, home isolation will be allowed only for those COVID positive tested patients, below 40 years of age, with no comorbidities, that too after passing fitness test.

A meeting with the representatives of Private Hospitals was held here yesterday to take stock of the situation in the wake of fingers being pinpointed at them for delay in reporting COVID deaths. 

Two days ago, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Dr. Bagadi Gautham and District Surveillance officer Dr. Shivaprasad had opined that delay in sharing death details by both Private Hospitals and Government Hospitals has been one of the main reasons for late reporting of COVID deaths.

A senior Health Department Officer, who attended the meeting, told SOM that the Private Hospitals were strictly told not to shift critical patients to Government Hospitals after trying out various methods of treatment. 

Presently, some hospitals admit Corona positive patients no matter whether they have capacity or capability to treat Corona positive patients and give up when patients condition goes worse. Then they will advise of patients to shift to Government Hospitals. In the process, many patients die soon after their admission into Government Hospitals.

Give list of COVID deaths since March 1

The officer said that Private Hospitals were told to furnish a list of patients who died of Corona since March 1, 2021 following the State Government’s announcement of giving Rs. 1 lakh compensation to BPL families that has lost its earning member due to COVID-19 pandemic.  Besides, any COVID death happens in any Private Hospital from 10 am of today to 10 am the next day, must be immediately brought to the notice of District Health Office by sending an official mail. 

This would help not only in daily reporting of COVID deaths without inordinate delay. The representatives of Hospitals must appear before the Death Audit Committee daily to explain reasons for the death of patients. Presently, deaths due to multi-organ failure, post COVID-19 recovery were not reported in time causing delay in updating district death figure daily, he added.

The officer said that as per instructions, every death occurs in Private or Government Hospital must be audited as it needs to be explained to general public and added that this delay was not only happening in Private Hospitals but also in Government Hospitals.

Collect swab, send to Govt. labs for free testing

The Private Hospitals have been strictly instructed to do swab testing of primary, secondary or symptomatic persons and send it to Government laboratories for free testing. 

There was an emergent need to do this as Corona positive cases were not declining despite making all efforts by District Administration resulting in many people hesitating to come to Government facilities for COVID tests. Such people can give swab sample to Private Hospitals from where the same could be sent to the Government laboratories for free testing. 

Death audit of 270 deaths still pending

The officer said that the death audit of around 270 persons who died in the last 15-20 days, was yet to be held due to delay in uploading details in portal. Representatives of both Private and Government Hospitals have to appear before the committee to explain the cause of death. 

“The number of deaths in Mysuru district will be on the higher side for the next one week since we have to show the cause of death of 270 persons. Once everything is set right, accurate death figure will be shown in the official bulletin,” the officer said.

The meeting was attended by Family Planning Officer and Nodal Officer for COVID-19 Vaccination in Private Hospitals Dr. P. Ravi, Divisional Joint Director Dr. Udaykumar and District Surveillance Officer Dr. Shivaprasad.