Till the other day, Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was adamant on not allowing private labs to conduct diagnostic tests for Covid-19 and private hospitals to treat the Corona patients.
Many times, health minister Eatala Rajender used to reject the demand saying the private medical facilities would only fleece the patients and cash in on their anxiety in getting tested and treated.
Even after the high court said the patients should have freedom to get tested and treated wherever they wanted, the TRS government did not respond positively and insisted that they should come only to Gandhi Hospital.
But all of a sudden, KCR changed his mind a couple of days ago and decided to allow private hospitals to treat the Corona patients. And on Monday, his government announced fixing a cap on the fees collected by private diagnositic centres and hospitals.
Everybody was surprised as to why KCR took such a sudden U-turn.
The talk that has been doing rounds in the media circles is that the chief minister had come under pressure from his own party leaders who had been falling prey to the dreaded virus.
In the last three days, three TRS MLAs tested positive and they got admitted in corporate hospitals. What is worse, their personal staff including gunmen and personal assitants who were also affected had to get admitted to Gandhi Hospital.
This led to massive criticism from all corners, as KCR said there would be no discrimination between a VIP and a common man in getting treatment for Covid-19.
With more and more political leaders have started reporting to hospitals with Coronavirus, the government realised that it is not possible to provide star treatment to the VIPs in Gandhi Hospital.
So, the KCR government decided to allow private hospitals as well, so that it can avoid criticism. Better late than never!