Officials crack the whip on private hospitals, labs

The West Godavari district administration on Friday cracked the whip against private nursing homes and diagnostic centres for allegedly creating scare among people on dengue fevers.

The official teams from the Medical and Health departments seized a nursing home and lab in the city and two private hospitals in Chintalapudi, Collector G. Vanimohan said at a review meeting on viral fevers convened by Social Welfare Minister Pitani Satyanarayana here.

Ms. Vanimohan said some private hospitals and diagnostic centres were found guilty of subjecting people with fever symptoms to anxiety, cheating, and exploitation by wrongly stating that they got afflicted with dengue fever.

Undependable diagnostic methods were allegedly being employed to confirm the disease.

It was only Mac Elisa was an authentic and dependable testing procedure for confirmation of dengue cases and that the other testing procedures relating dengue were illegal as per the WHO guidelines, the Collector said.

The Elisa testing equipment was available in Asram Hospital and in the government hospital in Eluru, she said.

Appeal

“No dengue case shall be officially declared by anybody unless and until it is put to test through the Elisa procedure”, she observed with an appeal to the media to restrain from creating scare in the public on the incidence of dengue fevers in the district.

The Collector said a section of medical officers from the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the fever-struck areas were allegedly in collusion with the corporate hospitals and referring the patients to the latter, stating them to be dengue victims.

The Eluru RDO was asked to go into the issue and initiate action against such erring government doctors, the Collector said.

She said the private hospitals were forcing the patients to undergo a series of unnecessary tests and pay hefty amounts for replacing platelets, although the situation did not warrant such transfusion in such cases.