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Cuttack: Tension prevailed at SCB Medical College and Hospital on Monday after user fees were collected from patients going for various diagnostics and other medical tests despite government’s directive that such services would be provided free of cost from January 1, 2018.
As per previous announcements, Odisha government had launched ‘NIDAAN’ scheme in December last year to provide free diagnostic services to patients in all the state run hospitals.
However, as user fees were being collected from patients, it sparked off tension on SCB campus today.
“The doctors had asked us to conduct a CT scan but the authorities at the diagnostic centre neither took money nor did the tests following unrest in the morning,” said Sudhir Paul, a patient’s attendant.
Several patients faced lot of inconvenience as they were seen queuing up before the counters at the diagnostic centres for a long time.
SCB Emergency Officer, BN Moharana on the other hand attributed it as a ‘communication gap’ as the government’s order could not be circulated to all departments of the hospital.
“It was a holiday yesterday and due to some technical reasons, the circular could not be communicated to all departments. However, things have been streamlined now and all tests except MRI is being done free of cost while no user fee is being collected from patients,” said Moharana.
Earlier, the state government had also announced to provide high-end pathology tests, digital X-Ray, CT-scan and MRI free of cost in government health facilities under PPP mode by March 2018.
Under ‘Sahaya’ scheme free dialysis treatment will be provided while 125 dialysis machines will be installed in PPP mode in five district headquarters hospitals and one at Narasinghapur Community Health Centre in Cuttack district by March 2018, official sources said.
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