kochi in kerala almost 80 of patients had to pay out of their own pocket for covid treatment in private hospitals only 8 availed the benefits of government insurance schemes and another 12 had private insurancetill june 30 2021 almost 82 of the total population 2924166 people had covid infection and of that an estimated 438625 required hospitalization with many requiring icu and ventilator support during the initial phase of the first covid wave covid treatment was limited to government hospitals however from october private hospitals were roped in for treatment and now 50 of covid hospital admissions mostly category c patients mainly critical patients are treated in private hospitalsan analysis of hospitalization trends in southern states by project jeevan raksha a publicprivate partnership initiative involving public health foundation of india phfi that has been submitted to central and state governments shows that in kerala till june 15 only 34755 had sought treatment in private hospitals under government schemes and another 51102 made claims under individual health insurance schemeskerala covid management disappointing in second wavethis clearly indicates that in kerala preference of empaneled hospitals for direct payment admission is relatively higher understandably due to higher per bed realization or profit more disturbing is that even people who had taken insurance cover seem to have been denied admission kerala government has failed to regulate admissions effectively on the other hand andhra pradesh and karnataka have been successful in ensuring the maximum number of people having medical insurance schemes either government or private are able to leverage on the available benefits said mysore sanjeev convener of project jeevan raksha which puts out monthly covid projections for each statethis despite almost 57 of the population having group or individual health insurance nongovernment schemes in kerala while in india it is only 24 another 415 lakh families almost half of states population are covered under karunya arogya suraksha paddhati kasp a healthcare scheme of the state government under which approximately 19 lakh additional families get the benefits of pradhan mantri jan arogya yojana pmjay along with the existing 2187 familieskerala covid management especially in the second wave is disappointing it has neither controlled the virus spread nor effectively regulated empaneled hospitals in bed allocation for insured people government scheme or private people seem to be scared of getting isolated in hospitals due to nonaffordability said sanjeevhowever an official with the state health agency said majority of covid treatment is in government hospitals and covid treatment is completely free here for all only very critical patients were referred to private hospitalspolice check vehicles in front of the secretariat as part of weekend lockdown in thiruvananthapuram on saturdaydue to outofpocket expenditure according to project jeevan raksha during the second covid wave hospitalization in kerala was less than 15 while that in neighboring tamil nadu was around 30 however the number of people on ventilator support among active cases increased by three times in kerala on october 10 2020 only 189 of 95918 active cases were on