HYDERABAD: To provide relief to attendants of patients from economically weaker sections, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, during the recent cabinet meet, suggested that MLAs and MPs pool funds to improve facilities at government hospitals.
This, as many such attendants find it difficult to pay for accommodation outside the hospital premises even on regular days.
State-run hospitals take in the most number of inpatients even on regular days, at an occupancy rate of around 120 per cent which also leads to a rush of attendants.
One of the topics which reportedly came up for discussion during the meet was how hospitals in the government sector, despite serving large numbers of patients, were still seen as centres of negligence.
“Even in the non-Covid scenario, the occupancy ratio of government hospitals is anywhere between 120 and 130 per cent,” informed a highly-placed source in the government.
On regular days, floor beds are arranged to treat patients while in paediatric wards, children undergoing treatment share beds with other children and sometimes even with their mothers.
Such scenarios increase the load of visitors to hospitals, and this happens often in cases of patients who are under long-term treatment.
In most cases, family members coming from villages or remote areas cannot afford the rent and other costs of staying in accommodations outside the hospital.
“They sit on footpaths or under trees and bring with them stoves to cook and have to face other difficulties.
In such a situation, if facilities for such people can be improved, the image of government hospitals will be enhanced as reliable support for and poor and even middle-income groups,” the government source said.