Amid global coronavirus pandemic, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has demanded that the Congress government in Punjab should clarify its official policy on the private hospitals. It had also brought to the notice of the Government the issue of harassment being meted out to the patients suffering from corona and other seasonal ailments at the state government-run hospitals, including the PGIMER, Chandigarh. In a joint statement issued from party headquarters on Wednesday, party’s chief spokesperson and MLA Prof. Baljinder Kaur and Garhshankar MLA Jai Krishan Singh Rouri said that due to the unclear policies of the government and its inconsistent decisions, a large number of patients suffering from coronas and other seasonal ailments, were left to suffer in silence at the government-run hospitals. Prof. Baljinder Kaur demanded that the Captain government should clarify its official on private hospitals authorised for treating patients tested for corona virus and whether or not it allowed treatment of Corona patients at private hospitals, and were the government well-equipped to offer satisfactory treatment to potential number of corona patients?
She demanded that it should also make its policy clear if or not the government would bear the entire treatment cost incurred on the treatment of patients at private hospitals?The AAP leader said that at this juncture of global distress, the Captain government should take a cue from the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi and declare its clear-cut policy, clearing its status on private hospitals, saying the Delhi Government had equipped the government hospitals so well that no patient was required to go to private hospital for treatment of the corona virus. She informed that some top notch private hospitals authorised to test and treat corona patients had been empanelled with the government hospitals providing free testing facilities, saying the Punjab government should also replicate the Delhi model sooner than later. She added that the Captain government, like the Delhi government, should take control of well-equipped private hospitals where a large-scale testing campaign for the people could be mounted. Jaikishan Singh Rouri stressed the need for the restoration of OPD and emergency services for patients with other general ailments at the state run government hospitals, including the PGIMER