The pendency of more than Rs4 crore has pushed the biggest hospital of State, Doon Hospital into a situation of financial crisis. The hospital is allocated an annual budget of Rs17 crore, but it has received an installment of only Rs2.15 crore to date.
The pending bills have pushed many vendors on the brink and some of them have threatened to stop supplies if their dues are not paid soon. The Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) has also warned the hospital authorities to pay the pending bills for more than four months otherwise, it would be forced to disconnect the power supply.
The Doon hospital owes Rs1.75 crore to the medicine supplying vendors, Rs1.20 crore to the local Purchase (lP) medicine vendor, Rs40 lakh to the food supplier, Rs30 lakh for surgical equipment suppliers, Rs16 lakh to the UPCl, Rs5.0 lakh for fuel and Rs6 lakh for maintenance. Similarly the hospital owes Rs60 lakh for honorarium which it has to pay as salaries of the contractual heath, sanitation and paramedic staffs. There are about 70 contractual sanitation employees and 19 contractual security personnel the salaries of which the hospital administration pays.
The Principal Medical Superintendent (PMS) of Doon hospital, Dr R S Aswal said the health directorate is informed about the situation. He said that the hospital has already submitted the necessary Utilization Certificate (UC) which is needed for releasing another installment of budget. One of a senior official of hospital said that the issue of delay in budget is being raised before the senior officers of health directorate regularly, but nothing has improved.