The Hindu : New Delhi News : AIIMS proposal to start ‘pay clinics’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 19, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

AIIMS proposal to start ‘pay clinics’

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

Move is strongly opposed by a section of faculty

NEW DELHI: Despite being opposed by a section of the senior faculty earlier and having failed to take off, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences is now again proposing “commercialisation of health care facilities” at the Institute.

The 24-point agenda sheet submitted by the AIIMS Hospital Management Board (HMB) for a meeting to be held on Wednesday includes “pay clinics to be started in a new private ward block, if possible with the existing staff”. The move has been strongly opposed by a section of the senior faculty at the Institute.

“The Institute had previously brought in measures to commercialise healthcare services including an out-patients ticket in 1992, incentive sharing scheme for the medical staff in 1997, evening clinics and later user charges in 2005. None of these schemes worked as these were opposed to the basic principle for what the Institute stands for, which is providing quality health care to the poorest of the poor and setting standards for medical education and carrying out research,” said a senior faculty member.

Stating that doctors would oppose any attempts to re-introduce “money-making project by the Institute’s HMB”, a senior faculty member, Dr. Anoop Saraya, who previously spearheaded attempts to “commercialise health care” at AIIMS, said: “Generating money is not in our mandate. Also, the Institute has been registering a surplus each year for at least the past five years. We haven’t been able to use the money allocated to the Institute, then where is the need to introduce scheme and policies where the patients need to pay? Policies like these are a result of poor management and not patient-friendly in any manner. While I am sure any such move will be opposed by the HMB members, however, if brought it will change the character of the Institute.”

Other items on the agenda include a new appointment system for patients coming to the Institute from other cities and hospitals, looking at overcrowding in the outpatient department and Casualty and bringing in more registration clerks.

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