Khushi
Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to provide immediate instructions to insurance companies to ensure no delay occurs in approvals for discharge of patients who were affected by COVID-19.
A Single Bench comprising Justice Pratibha M Singh directed, “Insurance companies/their agents be directed to communicate their approvals to the concerned hospitals/establishments within a maximum time period of 30 to 60 minutes, in order to ensure that the discharge of the patients is not delayed in any manner.”
“Once a patient is ready for discharge and while the attendant of the patient is waiting for the discharge slip to be processed, the hospitals/establishments can, instead of holding up the bed, process the new admission on that bed so that the bed does not remain unoccupied and needy patients are immediately given admission for their treatment,” the Court suggested.
The Court also issued directions in two petitions concerning the non availability of Remdesivir and issues of the portal maintained by Government of NCT of Delhi with regards to the hospital admissions
“It is public knowledge that most government and private hospitals issue prescriptions to the patients and the attendants to the patients are left to arrange the medicine on their own. The situation is so alarming that family members of patients travel across the city repeatedly visiting distributors, chemists, stockists to obtain the medicine. This could also be leading to exposure of so many person to the virus. As of last night, post the filing of the present writ petition, a circular/order has been issued to closely monitor the distribution of Remdesivir and for creation of a portal on real time basis,” the Court observed.
The Court regarding the non availability of Remdesiver directed that the patient or the family member or attendant of the patient should be allowed to put in a request in the portal for obtaining the Remdesivir, instead of routing all the drugs through the hospitals or other medical establishments.