North Congress threatens it will be forced to protest in front of these hospitals
MAPUSA
Threatening to expose private hospitals for demanding huge sums of money to treat Covid-19 patients, the Congress on Sunday said private hospitals harassed patients during admission while haggling for advance payment.
“We have come to understand that private hospitals demand deposit amount before a patient is admitted for treatment for coronavirus infection. Even those people who have cashless insurance facility are compelled to pay a deposit amount,” said Vijay Bhike, North Goa Congress District President.
The North Goa Congress District President was addressing a news conference along with General Secretary Bolanath Gadi in Mapusa.
Continuing, Bhike said people were forced to cough up in lakhs for Covid-19 treatment in private hospitals.
He said Congress had in its possession bills from a private hospital amounting to around Rs 3.5 lakh for Covid treatment of a patient.
“The patient was charged over Rs 1 lakh only for his medication besides other hospital charges under various heads some of which were baffling,” the district Congress chief said.
The Congress has warned private hospitals not to compel it to come out and hold protests in front of the hospitals if harassment of patients continued.
“We will also do a sting operation to expose such hospitals that are demanding huge amounts of money for treatment of positive patients,” Bhike said.
He said several patients were on the waiting list to be admitted in the hospital for more than 15 days which indicates that Covid-19 cases were rising in the State whereas the infra fell woefully short compared to the demand.
He held the government responsible for failing to provide adequate infrastructure to treat patients in the State.
Responding to recent charges against Congress made by Mapusa Chairperson Ryan Braganza, the North Goa Congress district chief said the Congress was never hungry for power and left it to people’s wisdom to elect them or not.
He also said that whenever in government, the party helped in developing constituencies represented both by the ruling as well as the opposition MLAs.
He said projects like the North Goa District Hospital at Peddem and the present fish and vegetable markets were all initiated by the Congress.
“Some of the projects may have been inaugurated during the BJP regime but no one can take away the credit for work done by Congress in Mapusa,” he said. The Mapusa Chairperson had recently said that Congress will never come to power in Mapusa and that the party had done nothing for the town.
Meanwhile, a former councilor of Mapusa Municipal Council, Antonio Alvares, along with his supporters joined Congress on Sunday.
“I have joined Congress because it is the only party which can take all sections of the society together without creating divisions among people,” Alvares said.
He was elected from ward 14 of Khorlim in 2010-15 which was then reserved as the ST ward. He was a member of the BJP-backed panel in that election.
