According to sources, the Health Ministry has initiated a step to make a big change in the list of CGHS empanelled hospitals and diagnostic centres across the country.
According to sources, the plan is to remove a large number of general hospitals and diagnostic laboratories from the panel and include some more super-speciality hospitals in the list. The new list of empanelled hospitals and labs would be finalised soon as the review process is in final stage.
“The ministry is analysing the data of all empanelled hospitals and testing labs based on how many CGHS patients have visited a particular hospital and diagnostic centre in a year.
“The hospitals and labs where fewer patients have visited and sparingly used the testing facilities would be removed from the list,” a senior health ministry official said, adding that the plan is to trim the list of empanelled hospitals to 500 only, which at present stands at 1,000.
The ministry is also mulling the provision to make it mandatory to have minimum bed limit for getting CGHS empanelment. This would automatically prevent comparatively smaller general hospitals from making the cut.
“The government would prefer those hospitals that have the facilities to treat each ailment —multi speciality, including ear and dental care treatment facilities. The Centre also plans to discontinue the provision of having a separate panel for eye and dental care hospitals on CGHS,” a source said.
The same formula would also be applicable in selection of diagnostic centres. The labs having testing facilities for pathology as well as radiology would be given preference over other labs. Dubbing the move as pro-corporate, Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Ritu Priya said that the decision went against the World Health Organisation guidelines on primary healthcare and was an attempt to help
healthcare biggies.
“The WHO guidelines clearly mention that primary healthcare centres should be available within the reach of patients. One cannot afford to visit a multi-speciality hospital to treat common seasonal ailments as CGHS consultation fee at big hospitals is always higher than their lesser counterparts,” said Priya, who is associated with Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health (CSMCH) department.