KIMS’s Honeymoon with Administration
Bhubaneswar (Reporters Today Bureau): While millions of ordinary people in the State are facing untold hardships during the Covid epidemic, a handful of bureaucrats, private organizations and private hospitals such as KIMS are benefited hugely. Due to the State Government’s Corona Management policy to provide more benefits to private hospitals, BJD MP Achyuta Samantha’s KIMS has been able to make innumerable profits for which he was able to establish hospitals in three other districts of the State.
How did he get the most out of it? Following the announcement of the Covid Lockdown in March 2020, the State Government said it was fully prepared for Covid’s response. In the first week of April 20, 500 public beds were set up at KIMS Hospital and the SUM hospital for the patients. At that time, Covid’s diagnosis had not begun. On April 8, 2020, the then Development Commissioner, the current Chief Secretary wrote a letter to all the District Magistrates instructing them to pay bed charges per day whether there were patients or not with a guideline.
Based on the letter, the District Magistrates decided to pay Rs 3,000 per day for general bed and Rs 5,000 per day for ICU bed charges to private hospitals. Private hospitals, such as KIMS, have been asked to prepare bills of bed charges and separate bills for patients. Hospitals usually get payment for treatment of patients. However, there were no patients at that time, and empty beds were billed at Rs 16 lakh per day. Here, KIMS billed Rs 5 crore per month, whether there were patients or not.
Between April and December, KIMS Hospital charged Rs 41 crore for empty beds, while patients’ treatment cost claimed only Rs 2 crore for medical expenses. Mr Samanta set up three more hospitals in Kandhamal, Mayurbhanj and Balangir overnight after getting the gratis money. KIMS was paid an advance of Rs 12,35,26,000 on April 1. This is an example of how the ruling party’s private sector establishments became millionaire during the Covid epidemic.
