All leading private hospitals in the city, including Apollo, AMRI, Bellevue, Woodlands, Narayana Super Speciality, ILS, Desun and Medica, have set up satellite facilities or tied up with hotels to functions as satellite units to house mildly symptomatic Covid patients so as to free up hospital beds for the more critical ones. About 75% of the over 200 hotel rooms attached to these hospitals are already occupied, and the IRDA’s latest circular comes as a huge relief to patients availing themselves of this service.

According to Sunil Parakh, CEO of Heritage TPA, hotel rooms will be treated as extensions of hospitals. “The billing has to be done by hospitals and there should be an MoU between the hospital and the hotel where the patient is put up,” he said. Arijit Bagchi of Ideal Insurance said he expects to receive insurance claims for hotel hospitalisation from this week. “The circular is still new, so claims would start coming in from this week. Some private insurers like ICICI Lombard have already started informing their policyholders,” he added.

Rupak Barua, group CEO of AMRI Hospitals and president of the Association of Hospitals of Eastern India, welcomed the IRDA move. “A large number of Covid patients do not need hospital admission. Many of them are opting for the satellite facilities where they are living in home-like conditions but under regular monitoring by a medical team. The bill paid at these facilities is part of the cost of treatment and we are happy that the IRDA has recognised this and given its approval,” he said. “The IRDA move would be of great help for many,” oncologist Sourav Dutta said.

The secretary of Hotel and Restaurants Association of Eastern India (HRAEI), Sudesh Poddar, said 239 rooms have already been attached to different private hospitals. “Over 75% of these rooms are already occupied and we are in the process of offering another 324 rooms to hospitals. This is going to be a game-changer for Covid treatment in Bengal. The availability of beds in hospitals is easing out, thanks to the proactive steps taken by the Bengal government,” he added.

TOI had earlier reported that the HRAEI had offered the medical fraternity rooms to house patients with mild symptoms to tide over the crisis of beds and the state government had actively facilitated hotel-hospital tie-ups. Consequently, hotels like Monotel, The Sonnet Hotel, Hotel Shalimar, Hotel Arya Enclave, Orion West Willows, Oxyzen Hotel, Acme signed contracts with various leading hospitals.

S Bhakta, director of J N Roy Hospital, said the IRDA move was much-awaited. “We introduced home care more than a month back and have already treated over 100 patients,” he said.

Source: The Times of India