Supreme Court asks state govts to fix reasonable ambulance charge for Covid patients
New Delhi/IBNS: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the states to fix a reasonable rate for ambulance services to Covid patients and ensure there are sufficient ambulances in each district to take the Covid patients to hospitals, reported media.
Hearing a batch of petitions seeking the apex court’s directive to streamline the health services amid coronavirus pandemic, the court said that the states are “bound to carry out the advisory issued by the Centre to deal with pandemic”, said an NDTV report.
The top court had earlier directed the Centre to cap the Covid-19 testing charges in various states but had refused to put an upper ceiling on the cost of Covis-19 treatment in private hospitals.
The court’s judgement comes amid reports across the country how Covid patients are specifically charged thousands of rupees even for short distances by ambulance owners.
Coronavirus patients are likely to get relief with this judgement from being charged exorbitantly by private ambulance providers as the state government-run ambulance services struggle to improve their fleet.
While the governments have been taking action against the private service providers in local pockets, there is no uniform policy across the states.
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