There is lack of awareness among people on healthcare costs and this is one sector where the professionals, including the doctors and nurses, do not have an option to work from home and they risk their lives, Prashanth Rajagopalan, Director, MGM Healthcare, said.
“Doctors and the nurses have a 12-hour duty and they need to be paid special incentives for the extra working hours. The human resource and overhead costs have doubled for the hospitals, which are being passed on to the patients,” he said.
He was responding to a question by S. Prakash, Convenor, FICCI Tamil Nadu Insurance Panel at the round table discussion on “Addressing pain points in healthcare faced by the public during the pandemic” organised online by FICCI Tamil Nadu State Council.
Mr. Rajagopalan pointed out that no State government had given exemption to hospitals from electricity charges or property tax to help them reduce their overhead expenses.
Karthick Prabhu, State Assistant Secretary, Indian Medical Association, Tamil Nadu, said although GST was not charged for the healthcare services, the hospitals need to pay GST on inputs and consumables, including sanitisers. Similar to benefits offered to Army personnel, the healthcare workers during these pandemic times were not being offered any special quotas or incentives although their sacrifices were second to none.
Ashish Chauhan, Senior Consultant, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, said that the allocation for healthcare as a percentage of GDP was very low compared to the neighbouring countries. “The government should exempt all the healthcare products used for COVID-19 treatment from GST,” he said.
During the session Raghava Rao, co-founder, Camomile Healthcare, said that India had only 0.7 beds per 1,000 population and the case with ICU beds was even worse. He mentioned that hospitals should invest in additional infrastructure and safety systems.
Published - May 29, 2021 09:19 pm IST
