Help accident victim reach hospital, get rewarded with Rs 2K

NEW DELHI: After eight months of the announcement, the Delhi government is all set to start giving a reward of Rs 2,000 to the person who will bring an accident victim to hospitals, said Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Monday. The plan is likely to be materialised by the end of October, Jain said in a live video on Facebook to address the health issues of the city.

In January this year, the cabinet had approved the 'Good Samaritan Policy' of rewarding these people.

"In a couple of months, we will launch this scheme to reward people who will bring the accident victims," Jain said. He also elaborated that, the citizens face a lot of problems to bring these victims due to cost related issues which the government will bear.

The minister also said that the government was making the plan by which every accident victim in the city will be treated for free in both government and private hospitals. "We are tying up with nearly 303 private hospitals which have emergency services and the government will pay the cost of the whole treatment for the victims admitted," Jain said. The minister further elaborated that the treatment cost for the accident victims becomes very high due to various medical tests and the government will make sure that these tests were done in free.

Earlier, after a road accident at West Delhi's Subhash Nagar where the victim bled to death because no one had helped him, the government had announced this scheme. The government observed that most of the people are unwilling to help, mainly because they are scared they would land in trouble or be harassed. The scheme is aimed at encouraging people to take accident victims in the emergency situation to hospitals so that someone's life could be saved.

According to officials, the scheme took a long time because the private hospitals are also involved here.

Discussing these new initiatives, Jain observed that the target of the government is to provide quality health care to everyone. "Previously the quality health care was for a specific class of people but our target is to provide treatment to all in affordable cost," he said.

Discussing various initiatives, the minister explained that Delhi government has directed all the private hospitals to give immediate reports to the department regarding accident cases. He elaborated that the government would monitor all these reports from the private hospitals and would not tolerate any lapses in the order. "Our aim is to save as many as life possible and if the government hospitals can not afford that then we should take help of the private hospitals," Jain said.

The minister also ensured that every citizen can approach the government regarding the accident cases. He said that in emergency cases if the doctors refer to extension then the government will also take care of that.

Explaining all these initiatives, he urged the people to be more sensitive regarding accident victims and to cooperate with the government by bringing them to hospitals. The government feels that if the citizens come forward, then many lives could be saved on the streets of Delhi.