Kolkata: State government has formed a monitoring committee in all the districts to ensure that people get hassle free treatment under 'Swasthya Sathi' scheme at various private hospitals and keep a check on any denials.
The monitoring will visit various private hospitals from time to time to check whether patients are deprived of free treatment by the private hospitals. State health department will take stern action against the private hospitals if they are found not to provide treatment under the scheme under any pretext. There have been instances where private hospitals denied treatment to patients under the state government's flagship scheme, 'Swasthya Sathi' also a brain child of the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The monitoring team from the districts will have to pay surprise visits to 6 private hospitals or nursing homes in a month.
The Chief Medical officer of health in the district will be the head of the monitoring committee in the districts while in case of Kolkata, the Director of Health Services will be the chairman of the monitoring committee.
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.
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. The private hospitals had 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 been strengthening 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.