AP GOVT takes over all private hospital for treatment of COVID-19 affected persons

Seventeen new COVID-19 positive cases from six districts of Andhra Pradesh are confirmed taking the overall tally to 40. Most of them have returned after attending a religious congregation in Nizamuddin locality of Delhi, says the Health Department. One of the patients is a 10-year-old boy, the youngest to contract the virus in the State so far. He is from Lepakshi in Anantapur, and a close contact of Mecca returnee who is being treated in Karnataka. Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh government has taken over all private and corporate hospitals in the state with immediate in view of the increasing number of coronavirus cases in the state. As of Monday evening, 23 new positive cases were reported, with Visakhapatnam registering the highest number at six. Exercising powers conferred under the colonial-era Epidemic Disease Act, 1897, and the Andhra Pradesh Epidemic Disease Covid-19 Regulations, 2020, the government empowered district collectors to take charge of all private hospitals. Any resistance would be viewed seriously as per provisions of Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code, the government declared, reports The Deccan Chronicle. Doctors of private hospitals would have to provide their services whenever required by the government, as per the Act. The hospitals would have to make available to the government all their resources, including infrastructure like beds, rooms, wards, ICU premises, ventilators, testing labs, pharmacies, mortuaries, equipment and manpower. The hospitals would have to make available to the government all their resources, including infrastructure like beds, rooms, wards, ICU premises, ventilators, testing labs, pharmacies, mortuaries, equipment and manpower. Andhra Medical College principal Dr P.V. Sudhakar said that in the first phase only network hospitals would be taken over; the remaining would be added depending on the situation. The state government announced at 10 am IST on Monday that two men aged 49 and 72 years from Kakinada and Rajahmundry respectively had tested positive. A total of 33 samples were tested since Sunday night, out of which 31 showed negative, while two tested positive. The state government issued an order for setting up additional sample collection centres at all private medical colleges designated as district Covid-19 hospitals. ( picture courtesy: Careers360)