Hospitals denying treatment to COVID-19 patients will not be spared: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday warned hospitals denying admission to coronavirus patients, stating that they "will not be spared."

"Some hospitals are denying admission to COVID-19 patients. I am warning those who think they will be able to do black-marketing of beds using the influence of their protectors from other parties, you will not be spared," Kejriwal said.

He pointed out that certain private hospitals were denying admission to COVID-19 patients, demanding money for allocating beds. 

From now onwards, Kejriwal stated that the Delhi government will deploy medical professionals at each private hospital to keep tab on available beds for COVID patients.

Moreover, he said that the Delhi government has launched a mobile app to stop the black marketing of beds.

"We launched a mobile App to stop the black marketing of beds. We thought of making information about the number of beds and ventilators in hospitals transparent. There was an uproar over it as if we committed a crime," Kejriwal said in a press conference.

Dismissing media reports that testing for COVID-19 has stopped in Delhi, he said that 36 government and private labs are carrying out tests.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting through video conferencing (VC) to review the preparedness for prevention and control of COVID-19 in Delhi. 

He was joined by Ashwini Kumar Choubey, MoS (HFW); Anil Baijal, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi; and Satyendra Jain, Health Minister of Delhi.

“As the number of cases and fatality rises in Delhi, it needs to ramp up testing coupled with aggressive surveillance, contact tracing, and stringent containment and perimeter control activities," Vardhan said in the meeting. 

As all districts of UT of Delhi are now affected by COVID-19, Dr Harsh Vardhan pointed out that “the rising cases, high positivity rates and low testing levels in many districts are worrisome”.  

While the average testing/million population in Delhi was 2018, some districts such as north east (517 tests/million population) and south east (506 tests/million population) were far below. While the UT’s positivity rate of last week was 25.7%, several districts reported figures above 38%, he said. 

The high rate of infection in the health care workers was also serious issue, he added. It indicates poor infection prevention control practices in health care settings and needs to be attended to on priority, he pointed out.