Seeking to make access to treatment at the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) easier for the below-poverty-line (BPL) patients, doctors here at the hospital have written to the administration seeking to free the patients from the need for multiple verifications.
The doctors have suggested that the hospital bring in a system of bar code for BPL card beneficiaries and poor free category patients to avoid re-verifications.
Vijay Kumar, assistant professor, Department of Geriatric Medicine, said they encountered this problem specially in the geriatric department where “almost all patients need multiple test/procedures for their management in reaching a diagnosis and treatment, hence putting a bar code will make it hassle-free and more user-friendly”.
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He explained that when a patient got admitted to the hospital, he or she had to get BPL card verified for getting an X-ray done free of cost. When the same patient needed ultrasound or CT scan/MRI later on in the same admission or re-admission, he/she had to re-verify his BPL card which seemed to be a totally futile exercise and unwelcoming for patients and their attendants, he said. “Once a BPL beneficiary has been verified, then he /she should be considered below poverty line at least for that admission or we can frame some timeline, may be one or two years, after that we can re-verify the BPL card holders identity and validity,” he noted in his letter.
Doctors here requested that similar rules or policies could be framed for other poor patients who are not included in BPL category. They too have to undergo verification exercise again and again for each and every test/procedure before getting it done free of cost.
“AIIMS provides world-class medical services to the poorest of the poor and it is time that these problems and inconvenience faced by BPL card beneficiaries and poor free category patients in getting treatment from various departments/centres due to some avoidable administrative reasons is eliminated,” noted the letter.
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“Generating a bar code when the patient gets his unique ID or admission slip for out-patients as well as in-patients so that each and every test/procedure can be done free of cost without compelling him/her to undergo re-verification again and again would go a long way towards ensuring that patients are not harassed,” the group noted.