Karnataka Corona Update: Private Hospitals To Function As Fever Clinics In Bengaluru, Over 8 Lakh Students To Appear For SSLC Exams Tomorrow

Sixty-six private hospitals in Karnataka’s capital city Bengaluru will function as fever clinics and swab collection centres.

The State government passed this order today, invoking the Epidemic Diseases Act, in order to cope with the rising cases of Corona in the capital city.

The medical facilities include St. John'’s Medical College, Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Hospitals among others and will serve as the first point of contact in detecting Covid patients, whose symptoms include fever, cold, cough, sore throat, breathlessness among others.

At present, there are 52 such fever clinics which are government managed, while the State has more than 600 fever clinics and 1,172 swab collection centres.

The duties they have been tasked with include triaging of Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) cases to identify Covid cases, drawing swabs, using the software application meant for fever clinics and swab collection centres and making the swabs available for transport to the testing laboratories.

The transportation of swabs to the designated Covid testing labs will be arranged by the task leader for testing in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) area.

For triaging, the private medical colleges and hospitals are allowed to charge regular OPD fees, while swab collection fees should not exceed Rs 350.

The test will be conducted at government expense.

The government on Tuesday also announced that 50 per cent of the beds in the private hospitals will be reserved for treatment of patients referred by public health authorities (PHA).

Package charges for the treatment of Covid patients, both referred by the PHA as well admitted privately, were fixed by the state government on Tuesday.

While the prices for the patients referred by the PHAs stands at Rs 5,200 for general wards, Rs 7,000 for High Dependency Unit (HDU), Rs 8,500 for Isolation unit without ventilator, and Rs 10,000 for isolation units with ventilator, the charges for those who are directly admitted to the private hospitals are considerably higher.

The charges for the general ward itself has been capped at Rs 10,000, while HDUs will be charged Rs 10,000.

The isolation unit without ventilator will be chargeable at Rs 15,000 and Rs 25,000 for the one with ventilator.

Hospitals can charge 10 per cent extra for twin-sharing wards and 25 per cent more for single rooms.

There is no cap on suite charges.

As of Tuesday evening, the total number of positive cases in the state stood at 9,721, of which 6,004 have been discharged so far and 3,563 are active cases at present.

The number of deceased stands at 150.

Even as cases rise in different pockets of the state, especially the capital city, strict lockdown was re-imposed in several parts of Bengaluru.

SSLC exam tomorrow

But over 8 lakh students are preparing to appear for the SSLC exams tomorrow across the state, even amidst fears of the pandemic and opposition by a considerable section of parents.

The Minister for Education, S Suresh Kumar, assured that all precautionary measures have been taken to ensure students write the exams safely.

The state had also recently conducted the lone remaining exam for PUC students which had, by and large, been managed well, except for certain centres that defied Covid precautions.

(With inputs from IANS)