To ease the process of payments, post demonetisation for the poor patients, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is coming up with a “payment card” which would be issued to the patients free of cost and would be valid up to a year. The patients will have to recharge the card with an amount which can be of any amount and then use it at any billing counter from Outdoor Patients Department (OPD) to tests. The card will be issued in a month’s time.
“We are coming up with a card which the people can swipe for doing different medical tests and payments within the hospital. This card would be valid up to a year and patients can recharge it with as much amount as they want,” Dr. Amit Gupta, Spokesperson for AIIMS told The Pioneer.
In the first week of the demonetosation move, the Government hospitals saw less foot fall of patients in Delhi but the Government had asked the hospitals to provide relief to patients allowing them to accept the old currency denominations.
“As far as AIIMS is concerned, people are exempted of fees. The Government had ordered for the relaxation till November 24 while in exceptional cases, we still help them even at the Medical Superintendent Office has been open for such help,” he said.
The Government extended the deadline of accepting old currency at Government hospitals till December 15.
The AIIMS has already started using Paytm and other e-wallets for transactions in the OPDs. Interestingly, the hospital will have kiosks near OPDs where volunteers will guide and teach patients how to use their mobiles for making payment.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has directed all the States to opt for cashless modes of transactions such as mobile wallets like paytm, Mobikwik, Oxygen wallet and PayPal etc.