It is common knowledge that patients prefer private hospitals to government hospitals. Thursday’s progress monitoring of the performance of government medical college hospitals under various government insurance schemes has only validated this point. Many tertiary care hospitals have failed to draw any patient under the insurance schemes.
Except for a few hospitals, most government hospitals authorised to treat patients under Vajpayee Arogyashree, Rajiv Arogyabhagya and Jyothi Sanjeevini have not met even 50 per cent of their annual target. The hospitals’ performance was reviewed by the Medical Education Department.
According to the progress monitoring report available with The Hindu , important tertiary care hospitals – Victoria Hospital, Vani Vilas Hospital, Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases, Raichur Institute of Medical Sciences, Bijapur District Hospital, and Belgaum Institute of Medical Science – have got a shocking “zero” in terms of meeting the annual targets for 2014-15.
The Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust — which is implementing the schemes for catastrophic illness — has found that Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, and the Institute of Nephro Urology got the highest claims in 2014-15. The Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana Super-speciality Hospital under Bengaluru Medical College and Research Institute, Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, and Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Hubballi, among others fared badly. According to the report, Jayadeva Institute (Bengaluru and Mysuru units) achieved nearly 86 per cent of the target of treating 4,200 patients under the schemes. The institute also got the highest claim payment of nearly Rs. 20 crore in 2014-15.
Kidwai Institute and Nephro Urology Institute stand second and third in terms of claims and target achievement. While Kidwai treated around 66 per cent of the targeted 4,244 patients and got a claim settlement of nearly Rs. 12 crore, Nephro Urology Institute treated 574 patients of the target of 600 and claimed nearly Rs. 10 crore. Sources said that the three institutes were the first choice of patients although they had an option of choosing private hospitals. Taking note of this, Principal Secretary (Medical Education) M. Laxminarayana has given the other hospitals an ultimatum to achieve the target given to them before March.
The State’s Vajpayee Arogyashree scheme, an insurance scheme for below the poverty line (BPL) households, focussed on seven “catastrophic illnesses”, including cardiac diseases, cancer, neurological disease, and paediatric illness. While Rajiv Arogyabhagya was rolled out in 2013 for APL cardholders, Jyothi Sanjeevini was introduced in 2014 for government employees.
