ONGC Hospital restricts entry of pvt hospital representatives
RTI plea reveals that doctors are influenced to refer cases to corporate hospitals.
Taking note of a report in HT, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Hospital here on Friday restricted the entry of representatives of private hospitals and medical representatives to the hospital.
Hindustan Times had published the report on August 1 in which RTI activist Manish Verma had expressed fears that representatives of private hospitals might be influencing ONGC Hospital doctors to refer their patients to their hospitals.
The activist had filed an RTI question on June 22, 2015 seeking details of referral of patients by the ONGC Hospital to private hospitals. The RTI activist had also complained to the ONGC management about the fact that medical representatives and executives of private hospitals were seen on the campus during peak hours of the OPD and this interfered in the smooth functioning of the hospital.
He had sought details of the patients referred to the empanelled private hospitals by the ONGC Hospital, the list of doctors appointed in last 3 years, the budget sanctioned for the hospital including OPD and IPD. The reply to the RTI stated that during the year 2014-2015, the hospital sent total 10,815 patients for treatment and OPD consultation to other hospitals including corporate hospitals.
The ONGC Hospital management took note of the HT report and executive director chief HR Pradeep Sahariya issued a letter stating that the visit of medical representatives and corporate representatives of empanelled and non-empanelled hospitals to the doctors at ONGC Hospital was causing inconvenience to patients. Sahariya ordered that corporate representatives would not be allowed at the hospital premises during the OPD hours of 8 am to 2 pm.