Puducherry, Sept 25:Amid threats by political parties to organize agitations against Jipmer following its announcement that free treatment will be provided only to the BPL card holders from October 1, the institute today clarified that free treatment for poor patients will continue to be provided.

Jipmer director Rakesh Aggarwal in a release clarified that at present almost all OPD patients are being treated free of cost including issuing of drugs by the pharmacy and the routine laboratory tests and X-Rays and this will continue. The present measure is only to facilitate treatment of the poor so that they can seamlessly access the most sophisticated inpatient treatment without the need for any additional documentation. This measure would undoubtedly help the people immensely, he added.

He said the institute receives a large number of patients from distant areas for advanced and costly investigations, interventions and treatment. Some of these services are provided free of cost, as per government rules, only to those below the poverty line. Currently, patients needing these services are often forced to go back to their place of domicile to get income certificates repeatedly – because such certificates have a short validity. Further, the income limit for such benefits varies across states, leading to confusion whether a particular income is considered as eligible for such specific treatments or not. This poses a lot of discomfort to the patients and their family members, and sometimes also leads to delay in treatment.

Dr Aggarwal said regarding some speculation in the media about a recent notice by the institute’s hospital administration, it is clarified that the notice is actually intended to make the hospital procedures more patient friendly. This is sought to be done by documenting the ‘below the poverty line’ status of new patients at one time i e during the initial registration and recording the certificate details in the hospital’s system. This will allow patients who need prolonged treatment to avail of the services that need such certification without any interruption and without having to go back to their native places repeatedly to get income certificate each time, he said.

It may be noted that Jipmer recently issued a notice that free treatment will be only for BPL card holders from October 1 and this drew widespread protests from various political parties such as DMK, CPI(M) etc which threatened to organize agitations against Jipmer.(UNI)