The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : How far this concept pays off

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Monday, Jun 30, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

How far this concept pays off

R. Sujatha and Sarah Hiddleston

PHOTO: S.S.KUMAR

NOT POPULAR: The pay wards in tower block 1 of the GH remaining locked for six months for want of takers. —

CHENNAI: The pay wards in the Government Hospital were introduced with the intention of ensuring better service to those who could afford to pay. Six months after the launch at the GGH, only around 100 beds are currently in use. The rest remain unused.

The assurance was that more rooms would be opened when the demand peaked. But Health Secretary V.K. Subburaj has admitted that the rooms were not sought as they were pricey. The government is now revising its rates. “We are trying to introduce a new system that would allow people to take rooms even for a day and pay for just the number of days they occupy it. Now they have to pay for 10 days even if they do not stay that long.”

Patients and their families are mostly happy because the toilets are cleaner and more nurses to attend to patient’s needs. Sethuraman has been undergoing treatment at the GH for throat cancer for 55 days. “There are only two wheelchairs and most patients on this floor have either ortho problems or, like my husband, have to be transported to another area for therapy,” says Indira, his wife. “They should appoint more workers. For want of staff the treatment is delayed,” she points out. “Otherwise, services are good.”

The pay wards in maternity hospitals such as Kasturba Gandhi Hospital, Triplicane, and the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Egmore, are also popular. While the pay ward doesn’t look very different from the regular wards, patients are allotted a separate birthing space in the delivery room and have separate nurses and better bathrooms. The unit, running since 2000, has helped raise standards across the hospital, says director K. Saraswati. Facilities such as surgery rooms that were necessary for pay ward patients are also used by general ward patients. But payment is collected only from pay ward patients and this affects the maintenance and repair works, she says.

Pay wards were modelled on a pilot programme set 10 years ago by R. Surendran of Department of Surgical Gastroenterology, Stanley Hospital. “There is difference between these and the pay wards in other hospitals,” he stresses. “We collect a maintenance charge of Rs. 5,000 for a single room regardless of the length of stay.” Shared rooms are also available. The funds collected are also ploughed back into the general wards so that the bar is raised in the department

Dr Surendran said that initially he spent Rs.40 lakh of the Rs.1 crore he collected on maintenance. He has installed modern equipment to sterilise his wards. At Rs. 4 lakh it is expensive, but the wards do not smell of disinfectants and the department saves on alcohol-based sterilisers and antibiotics, he says.

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