Government to rein in private players

According to Samrat Pandya’s family,two private hospitals — Max Hospital and Paras — admitted the patient and billed them for unnecessary tests.

Blaming the two hospitals for his son’s death,Samrat’s father R S Pandya said: “Private hospitals just want their pound of flesh. They don’t care if the patient dies or lives. They admitted him and charged us for it.”

The state government will soon rope in private hospitals,whose staff will be trained in handling the H1N1 cases.

The hospital’s services will also be examined before allowing it to treat and test H1N1 patients.

“We are hoping that the patients who are uncomfortable going to government hospitals,go to these designated private hospitals,” said JP Singh,Health Secretary,Delhi government.

“It is difficult to monitor each nursing home in the city,” Singh added,“we are appealing to patients to go only to the designated hospitals.”

The danger signal
BREATHLESSNESS: It means that your lungs have been infected by the H1N1 virus. The H1N1 virus affects the pulmonary cells after entering the body in susceptible individuals.

People who are not immuno-compromised,can fight the virus at the early stage without any effect on the body. But the virus then penetrates deep into the lung cells and destroys them. This leads to inflammation of the lungs and pneumonia,and therefore breathlessness. If treatment is delayed,the patient can die of respiratory failure.