The State government established district-level committees on Tuesday to monitor the successful implementation of the Indigent Patients Fund (IPF) scheme to increase transparency and ensure that poor patients receive free and subsidised treatment under the system.
As per the government officials, charitable hospitals across the state run the IPF scheme but lack transparency.
The charitable hospitals get FSI, concessions in water, power, power, customs, sales, and income taxes amongst others and in exchange are obliged to provide free and discounted treatment to needy patients under the IPF scheme. However, the government has received several complaints in the past from patients about the inconvenience faced while availing the benefit of the scheme.
The Maharashtra government issued a general resolution (GR) on Tuesday and formed a special help cell to monitor reserved beds under the scheme across all charitable hospitals in the state. Also, district-level committees have been appointed in all districts which will be headed by the respective district collector. The district committee will have elected members, a Joint charity commissioner, a dean of medical college, civil surgeon amongst others as members.
“The state cell will monitor and help eligible patients get beds in the charitable hospitals. Due to a lack of effective implementation of the scheme the needy patients are unable to get the benefit as expected by the government. The district committee will monitor real-time bed occupancy and effective implementation of the IPF scheme,” Nandkishor More, secretary, Law and Judiciary Department, Maharashtra Government, said.
{{/usCountry}}“The state cell will monitor and help eligible patients get beds in the charitable hospitals. Due to a lack of effective implementation of the scheme the needy patients are unable to get the benefit as expected by the government. The district committee will monitor real-time bed occupancy and effective implementation of the IPF scheme,” Nandkishor More, secretary, Law and Judiciary Department, Maharashtra Government, said.
{{/usCountry}}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 (IPF scheme at these hospitals.