E-Paper
Pune pvt hospital staffers to undergo training to identify fake documents
The objective behind this move is to ensure that the charity reaches those who actually need it and not those who are pretending to be poor
Several charitable hospitals in Pune are plagued with a problem where patients are fraudulently availing free or discounted treatment meant for the underprivileged through the Indigent Patients’ Fund (IPF) scheme. To combat this issue, the Association of Hospitals in Pune (AHP) has decided to train hospital staff to identify fake documents. The objective behind this move is to ensure that the charity reaches those who actually need it and not those who are pretending to be poor.
Furthermore, given the increasing harassment by political groups and other organizations, the hospitals have decided to take the help of cops in case of coercion. The issue of bogus documents and harassment by organizations will be taken up with district collector, Rajesh Deshmukh in a meeting scheduled for Monday, October 9.
There are 58 charitable hospitals in Pune, 74 in Mumbai and 430 across the rest of the state. Patients from economically weaker sections get free or discounted treatment under the Indigent Patients Fund (IPF) scheme at these hospitals. All charitable hospitals have the mandate to earmark and reserve 10 per cent of their beds for indigent patients to be treated for free, and 10 per cent of beds for economically weaker sections.
Dr HK Sale, chairman of AHP, said, “The problem has become acute, and many times the staff is unaware that the documents submitted are fake. Due to this, the funds allocated for poor patients are getting exhausted as the money is being utilized for the treatment of bogus poor patients,” he said.
Dr Sale said this itself destroys the very objective of the IPF scheme as people with good connections or with fake documents are taking undue advantage of the scheme, and genuine patients get deprived of their rights.
Gopal Phadke, who heads the IPF scheme at Jehangir Hospital, will be providing training to the hospital staff to identify and cross-verify the fake documents. He said the Income proof and ration card are the two fake documents the charitable hospitals in the city are coming across frequently.
“The income proof documents when entered in the system are found to be fake. Similarly, when we check the ration card in the government portal the number on these cards is fake or doesn’t have the names of the family members missing,” he said.
The scheme:
The Indigent Patients Fund (IPF) scheme was framed by the Bombay High Court (HC) and rolled out in September 2006, all charitable hospitals in the state have to allocate two per cent of their gross billing to help indigent or economically weak patients. This aid has to be in the form of free treatment to those with an annual income below ₹ 85,000, and at 50 per cent discounted billing for patients whose family’s annual income does not exceed ₹ 1.8 lakh. Charitable hospitals get FSI, concessions in water, power, power, customs, sales, and income taxes amongst others.
