PRINCE KUMAR
Ranchi, May 5: Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), which received over Rs 9 crore in the most recent three years under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, is yet to pay its medical services workers as their list couldn’t be prepared. This was informed by the nodal officer of Ayushman Bharat at the health facility Dr Rakesh Ranjan.
Any state-run medical care facility needs to pay 25% of the aggregate sum received under the Ayushman Bharat plan to the medical care workers as an incentive, while 75% has to be used for increasing assets at the facility.
The RIMS management says that it hasn’t been able to pay the incentive to its staff as it couldn’t make a list for payment in the last three years.
“We had asked all the departments to submit a list of staff engaged in treating Ayushman Bharat patients before the second wave of the pandemic in March 2021. However, as they failed to submit a complete list, the payment got delayed. At the same time, Ayushman Mitra are getting paid from the same 25% which are computer operator engaged in the health facility to facilitate the work under Ayushman Bharat scheme,” Ranjan said.
He said that a total of Rs 15 crore of the claim amount under the Ayushman Bharat scheme has been sent from the RIMS, out of which Rs 9.5 crore has been received.
“We have decided to start the disbursal of the amount after looking into some top hospitals’ disbursal methods. As there is a whole lot of manpower involved in making the surgery successful, the proper list has been not prepared by the respective departments,” Dr Ranjan said.
Over 1,500 patients are treated every month across 10 departments at Rims of which 40% are patients who are admitted for critical surgeries.
According to sources at the hospital, a total of over 150 employees have been engaged in these departments providing services to Ayushman Bharat patients. They would have received Rs 2-2.5 lakh as an incentive so far if the amount was disbursed on time.
According to hospital records, the cardiology department has performed over 1,100 surgeries, followed by the general surgery department with 1,000 surgeries, paediatric surgery department (850), CTVS (400), eye department (375), ENT (320) and oncology (250).
