Employees, hospitals slam CGHS directive

PUNE: The latest directive of the Central Government Health Scheme, stating that four prominent hospitals in the city have been temporarily de-recognised “with immediate effect until further orders� has caused extreme confusion among the hospitals concerned and patients.
The October 24 directive of the CGHS, which has been put up at the seven dispensaries covered by the scheme in the city, names the following hospitals as de-recognised: Deendayal Memorial Hospital, N M Wadia Institute of Cardiology, Poona Hospital and Research Centre and the Ruby Hall Clinic.
While the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers has expressed serious concern over the development and its fallout on the nearly two lakh beneficiaries in the city, administrators at the affected hospitals said that they were not informed about the de-recognition.
“When one of our patients told us about the development, we deputed our employee to verify and found the notice,� Parag Mulay, director at Deendayal Hospital, said while speaking to TNN.
“What upsets us is the fact that there is no letter, nor a fax from the directorate informing us,� he said. Mulay said all the hospitals de-recognised by the CGHS were speciality hospitals, dealing with higher medical services.
“We find it agitating that the government has not even intimated us about this change,� he added. Administrator Jayant Deshpande and Dr Krishan Kumar at the N M Wadia Institute of Cardiology told TNN that they had received verbal confirmation on Wednesday evening that their hospital had been removed from the de-recognition list.
“We were called by Dr M D Mohopatra, CGHS officiating joint director, and told that our hospital was on the list by mistake, and that we are to maintain status quo and treat CGHS patients,� Kumar said.
Harish Radhakrishnan, secretary (Medical cell), Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers, Pune, said their October 28, memorandum to Union health minister Sushma Swaraj has pointed out that CGHS dispensaries in Pune had stopped referring patients to private hospitals and were referring them to the Sassoon general hospital.
This has made life miserable for central government employees as “the Sassoon hospital is overcrowded and is not in a position to handle the extra burden of the patients being directed there,� the memorandum to Swaraj said.
Radhakrishnan said rather than cause enormous pain and suffering to the Central government employees in Pune, the CGHS should appoint an “ombudsmen� to resolve financial disputes between the CGHS and the private hospitals.