Rachana Karur¹ and K Suresh²*

¹MPH Scholar, Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University (KSRDPRU), GADAG, Karnataka, India
²Public Health Consultant Bengaluru and Visiting Professor of Practice, KSRDPRU, Gadag, India

*Corresponding Author: K Suresh, Public Health Consultant Bengaluru and Visiting Professor of Practice, KSRDPRU, Gadag, India.

Received: August 16, 2022; Published: September 22, 2022

Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), the novel corona virus detected in 2019 has posed threat to human suffering and deaths. Even among the recovered family we see long term effects of i) Health- aches and pains, mental depression, exaggeration or recurrence or new emergence of diabetes, cardiac and pulmonary problems ii) Loss of jobs, low income, mounting debts iii) Nutrition- especially among children and women as the variety in diet has reduced and supplementary meals in schools and Anagnwadi centers were disrupted iv) Learning as the schools were closed for more than 18 months and v) Increased screen time of adolescents due online learning leading to internet addiction.

We report here the saga of five families in the neighborhood within a span of one week that was led by an unusual confidence led by a 90-year-old lady, tested positive for covid-19, one member each was admitted to a private hospital.

The healthy lifestyle of the elderly lady and other members following her footstep was a role model for the village The first case was a male of 52 years admitted to hospital on 1 December 2020, followed by 2 cases on 5^th December a 65-year lady and 45 years male and on 7 December 2020 2 more cases of 35- and 90-years ladies on 7^th December 2020. In terms initial symptoms 3 of them had fever, 2 had chills, 1- weakness, 1-loss of appetite and 1 had lost smell sensation. All of them had reached the hospital in the second week of infection and respiratory distress on admission. All of them were admitted to a private SDM Medical College Hospital, Dharwad. They were all managed by the standard national protocol. The institutional management and the family’s cooperation are talk of the village and surrounding villages. The elderly lady stood out among all of them, though she seemed tired and weak co-operated with the doctors and the hospital staff. Her spirit of getting well soon became popular and she became an inspiration for the youth admitted in the hospital for covid-19. With proper attention and care she was discharged after 10 days. At home, the family took extra care, with proper food, rest and exercise. Her previous health condition helped her in coping up and fighting against the corona virus disease which is an exemplary to the younger generation.

Looking at the hospitalization cost and the value of health insurance was a first attempt in this part of Karnataka state. Hospitalization of five members of the family has caused sizeable expenses. While four of them had health insurance and one did not. A comparison of the cost of Covid 19 treatment and insurance share indicated a minimum saving of 90% of the total cost for those insured when compared to the one who was not insured. The average cost worked out to be around INR 138,000 per patient with a minimum of 100,000 and a maximum of 190,000.

Keywords: Covid 19; SARS-CoV-2; Gadag

Bibliography

1. Considerations in the investigation of cases and clusters of COVID-19.
2. COVID-19 Outbreaks and Clusters-Congregate Living Setting.
3. Pooja Sengupta., et al. “An analysis of COVID-19 clusters in India”. BMC Public Health (2021).
4. Yoon-Jung., et al. “Types of COVID-19 clusters and their relationship with social distancing in the Seoul metropolitan area, South Korea”. International Journal of Infectious Diseases 106 (2021): 363-369.
5. 3 new COVID-19 clusters with 19 cases detected in Bengaluru.
6. Afshan Yasmeen. “Karnataka fixes rates for COVID-19 treatment in private hospitals”.
7. Suraksha P. “Covid-19 treatment at Karnataka's private hospitals to cost a minimum of Rs 1.7 lakh”.

Citation: Rachana Karur and K Suresh. “Health Insurance a Boon for Families with Covid 19 Hospitalization". Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports 3.10 (2022): 16-20.

Copyright: © 2022 Rachana Karur and K Suresh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.