State mulls to let patient know about treament cost borne at govt hospital at the time of release

KOLKATA: State government plans to let the patients know what amount it spends on every individual for his or her treatment at the time of their release from the hospitals. The idea will be replicated by the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital soon.

State already bears huge cost for providing free treatment to the patients, including the critical ones at all the government hospitals. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during a recent meeting, had directed the health officials to inform the patients' family members about the cost the government spends for their treatment at the hospitals.

According to sources in the Health department, RG Kar Medical College and Hospital is going to be the first hospital to introduce this initiative. It was learnt that the hospital will issue greetings to the patients at the time of discharge that will carry a mention as to how much money the government had spent for the treatment. The

Rogi Kalyan Samiti of the RG Kar and senior officials of the medical have already held a meeting to chalk out a detailed plan to roll out the initiative. A committee of senior doctors and accounts officials has chalked out a detailed plan on how to roll out the new initiative.

State government presented Rs 17602 crore Health Budget for 2022-23. Minister of state for Health Chandrima Bhattacharya on a number of occasions said Bengal is the only state that provides healthcare services in state-run hospitals completely free-of-cost, which includes dialysis, open heart surgery and even heart transplantation. In 2010-11, the state's Health Budget was Rs 3,584 crore which has gone upto Rs 17602 crore in 2022-23. The state Health department spent Rs 1979 crore for prevention and management of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.

A senior official of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital said that the hospital has spent a few lakhs of rupees on many patients in recent times. More than Rs 10 lakh has been spent for the treatment of a cancer patient in the past one-and-a-half year. The hospital also bore expenses worth over a lakh for the treatment of patients, who had undergone bypass surgeries. The initiative may be followed by other medical colleges and hospitals as well.

Meanwhile, in a bid to ensure that the patients in the districts can avail dialysis completely free-of-cost from the fair price dialysis centres set up under public private partnership (PPP) model, state Health department has given administrative approval and sanctioned around Rs 7 crore for

the project.