Cuttack: After unsuccessfully trying to collect user charges from inpatients for the last one year, the authorities of SCB Medical College and Hospital has once again decided to introduce the same from December 1. This time the authorities are planning to collect Rs 15 from each patient admitted to hospital.

``In view of the escalating maintenance cost of various equipment and making arrangements of other provisions in the hospital, it was decided to collect user charges from each inpatient,'' said hospital superintendent J K Balabantray. A decision to this effect was taken at the meeting of the heads of the department held recently.

Meanwhile, the Congress has threatened to launch a mass agitation against the proposed collection of fee from the patients. Cuttack City Congress president Suresh Mohapatra in a statement has said the proposal of the hospital is nothing but a `parochial' attitude of the authorities.

How the hospital authorities can think of collecting fees from poor patients when health services of the only referral hospital in the coastal area of the state are in a shambles, he asked. ``If the decision by the hospital authorities is not rolled back within two days, the party would be forced to paralyse the functioning of the hospital,'' Mohapatra warned.

Collection of user's fee for various clinical examinations in the hospital was introduced way back in 1997 and by the end of March 2006 around Rs 4 crores was collected.

Amid widespread allegations of misappropriation and improper collection of this fee, the hospital authorities were directed to emphasise on proper collection of fees by the Orissa Swasthya Vikash Samiti.

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