Senior Health dept officials hold meet with pvt hospitals

Kolkata: Senior Health department officials held a meeting with the top brass of private hospitals for discussing various issues including the smooth implementation of Swasthya Sathi scheme.

One of the main objectives of the meeting was to ensure that the beneficiaries of the scheme do not face any technical glitches while availing its benefits at the private

hospitals.

Both the parties agreed that an important scheme like Swasthya Sathi would provide quality health care to people.

Rupak Barua, president of Association of Hospitals of Eastern India, termed the meeting to be fruitful and positive. The private hospitals placed their demands for rationalisation of rates under the Swasthya Sathi scheme.

Earlier, it was alleged that some private health establishments denied treatment to patients, who had Swasthya Sathi cards. The state Health department had also issued guidelines saying that no patient could be denied treatment if they produce a Swasthya Sathi card.

"We have shared some of our concerns with the government. Smaller nursing homes will not be able to sustain their businesses if the rationalisation of rates is not done. We have to constantly upgrade our infrastructure and we have high overhead expenses in terms of equipment and manpower," Barua said.

The private hospitals also proposed the health department to set up a committee, which would review the rates of various treatments at the private health establishments as prescribed by the government under the scheme.

The health department has already strengthened the existing infrastructure to run such a big project in a smoother way. It has also created a robust IT platform so that there is no delay in providing health services. IT platforms have been given a further boost to monitor the health scheme on a real-time basis.

Following the announcement by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the entire population has been brought under the scheme.