PANJIM: The State government has issued show cause notices to private hospitals for delayed reporting on COVID-19 deaths.
A total of 72 under-reported deaths from August 2020 to June 2021, have been included in the State data in the last two days after a verification exercise found delay on part of private hospitals in reporting the numbers. A total of 10 hospitals are served with show cause notices.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant informed that the show cause notices have been issued to the private hospitals and necessary action as per the Public Health Act will be initiated.
“The mistake has been made by them (private hospitals). They had not informed the government at all. We have issued them a show cause according to the Health Act. The process is going on,” he said responding to a question.
The Chief Minister said Goa was the only State in the country which recorded every single COVID death, which gave the impression that the State had a high mortality rate compared to other States. “In Goa COVID deaths are 100 per cent recorded,” he said.
The Chief Minister also said even deaths in home isolation were reported 100 per cent with rare exceptions.
“In many cases, home isolation death cases are reported to the PHCs. They are brought on record. There might be one or two rare exceptions… As far as I know, when the patients are in extreme condition, the patient is brought to the PHCs, there is not a single COVID death which has not been recorded in PHCs,” Sawant said adding ‘even some hospitals declared patients as brought dead.’
