New Delhi: Premier health institute, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which plans to do away with user charges, has conducted a pilot study to justify its proposal.
User charges include diagnostic procedures such as blood tests and X-rays, which cost less than Rs 500. The pilot study revealed that the patients spend a substantial amount in the form of cost of travel from the their residence to the hospital, cost of food and lodging for self and attendants and loss of income for the patients as well as for the attendants.
The study comes in the wake of the Union health ministry’s direction to the AIIMS to furnish information about reviewing user charges, which haven’t been changed in the past 20 years.
The study also stated that the patients faced long queues to get dates for the prescribed investigations, pay the user charges and then investigations on the scheduled days. The patients make multiple number of visits to the hospital for investigations, which add to the harassment and economical loss of the patients.
According to the study, a patient from the capital has to shell out Rs 1,900 on every visit to the AIIMS, while those from outside Delhi on an average spend Rs 4,300 per visit.
The study was conducted on 456 patients, who visited the out patient department (OPD) of the medical institute. Of the total number of respondents, 234 were Delhiites, while 222 were outsiders.
Over 95 per cent of patients were accompanied by attendants, while 25 per cent of them were accompanied by two or more attendants. Among the interviewed patients, 63.8 per cent have gone for a single consultation, while 31.9 per cent went to the AIIMS for multiple consultations.
When the investigation reports are delayed, several indirect costs such as such as room rentals and transport costs etc of a patient and attendant, especially for those come from outside Delhi, thereby making the health care costlier for the patients as well as the state.
A committee, headed by HoD, gastroenterology, AIIMS, Dr Anoop Saraya, for reviewing the user fee charges at the premier medical hospital, submitted its report. “It is recommended that the user charges on low cost investigations (below Rs 500 per test) should be eliminated,” Dr Saraya said in his report.
