Introduction of a new referral system for health care scheme — liberal Health Medical Scheme (lHMS) by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) for its employees — is allegedly creating hurdles for them in availing better medical treatment.
While the employees are complaining that the Government doctors are refusing to refer them to other hospitals, the senior officials, on the other hand, claimed that they have received no such instruction from the council based on which they would refer the patients.
Disgruntled with the move, employees of the civic bodies and their family members initiated a signature campaign which they submitted to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Thursday. Dikshit is also the chairperson of the council.
“Doctors in Government Hospitals and dispensaries are refusing to refer us to private hospitals. Severely ill patients have to come themselves in order to get referral letters from the doctors. Moreover, many times one ailment leads to another. So for treatment of each disease, we have to get separate reference letters which becomes a very time consuming process. The C and D category employees are facing serious troubles due to this,” said Shrikant, an official of Fire Department of NDMC.
However, doctors claimed that they have not received any form of notification from the NDMC to refer patients to other hospitals. Moreover, many of them are facing trouble as the civic body has not clearly defined the term ‘emergency’. “There are so many criteria and types of emergencies. The civic body should clearly define which cases can be accounted for emergency cases,” said a doctor of Charak Palika Hospital.
After observing the growing dissatisfaction among the people associated with the civic body, the council amended the scheme and exempted pensioners from it. last week a brawl was witnessed in Charak Palika Hospital where a relative of a member of the council fought and beat up a doctor.
The Council has justified this new scheme stating that the previous cashless health services were proving to be too expensive for the agency and that many cases of misuse had also come to light.