Patients to be informed about amount spent on them at RG Kar Hospital
KOLKATA: RG Kar Medical College is the first hospital in the state to introduce a new system under which the patients at the time of discharge will be able to know what amount the government has spent for treatment of every individual in case of admission.
The RG Kar Medical College authorities have already started this new initiative from Monday. The patients at the time of discharge are now getting a bill which has already been paid by the government. As the patients get free treatment at all the government hospitals, they do not need to pay any amount for their treatment.
State government has some plans to let the patients know what amount it spends on every individual for his/her treatment at the time of their release from the hospitals. The idea is replicated by the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and it may be adopted by other medical colleges as well.
The idea came after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during a recent meeting told the health officials that people should also realise the money the government is spending for their treatment.
State already bears huge costs for providing free treatment to the patients including the critical ones at all the government hospitals. The Rogi Kalyan Samiti of the RG Kar and the senior officials of the medical college held a number of meetings to chalk out a detailed plan to roll out the initiative before it is finally rolled out. A committee of senior doctors and accounts officials created the blueprint of the new plan.
State government presented Rs 17602 crore Health Budget for 2022-23. Minister of state for Health Chandrima Bhattacharya on a number of occasions Bengal is the only state that provides health care services in state-run hospitals completely free of costs, 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.
