The patients visiting the associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) are paying the price of the medical education department’s failure to enforce similar user charges in all medical college hospitals of the state. The charges in the Dehradun hospital are much higher than in other medical college hospitals of the state.
There are three hospitals in Uttarakhand which function as the associated hospitals of government medical colleges. They are associated hospitals of Government medical colleges of Haldwani, Srinagar and Dehradun. The user charges of the associated hospital of GDMC here are similar to the charges of other government hospitals. As per the Government Order (GO) of 2010 applicable for the health department the user charges are increased by 10 percent every year.
The erstwhile Doon hospital and the Doon women hospitals which were district and district female hospitals respectively were merged with the nascent GDMC last year so that the necessary condition of the Medical Council of India (MCI) for a 300 bed associated hospital is fulfilled. The associated hospital carried forward the user charges which were imposed on the patients when it was district hospital. On the other hand, the medical education department has set up different charges for the medical college hospitals of Srinagar and Haldwani. These charges are much less than the government hospitals and more importantly are not increased by 10 percent every year. This disparity creates a big difference in user charges of GDMC hospital and other two medical college hospitals. For Example a registration fee of Rs 17 is charged in the GDMC hospital from a patient while in the associated hospitals of Haldwani and Srinagar a registration fee of only Rs 05 is charged. Similarly there is difference in charges of different pathology tests, MRI, CT scan and other radio-diagnostic tests.
The Director Medical Education, Dr Ashutosh Sayana accepted that there is difference in user charges of associated hospital of GDMC and other two colleges. He said that the process of having a uniform system of charges in all the hospitals of government medical colleges is underway.