Vikramaditya& Rabindranath Biswas
Port Blair, Oct 16: The patients referred from GB Pant Hospital to referral hospitals on the mainland for better treatment under Ayushman Bharat Scheme have been reportedly experiencing ordeals in Mainland Hospitals.
In one such example, one Mr. Barun Sarkar, R/o Nayagaon who is a patient with the complaint of spinal injury was referred to mainland for further treatment in a pvt. Hospital, Kolkata.
However, the ordeal he has been experiencing at the hospital is untold. Mr. Barun Sarkar is an indigent who used to work as a boat carpenter and sustained a spinal injury eight years ago due to heavy lifting but driven by poverty, he was compelled to continue the work all those years which further aggravated the injury.
What is disheartening to mention here that Mr. Sarkar has been asked by the management of the Pvt. Hospital at Kolkata to deposit Rs. 60,000/- separately for all tests required in connection to further diagnosis/tests of his disease.
Already for MRI, other tests, food and lodging the patients have spent nearly Rs. 30,000 out of nearly Rs.59,000 he had obtained as donation from generous people of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The penurious Barun has been put in unspeakable trouble when he found all his reserves exhausted in the tests while there is none to financially back him there at mainland. Not having sufficient money in hand, Mr. Sarkar has been leading a hardscrabble life there at Kolkata. Not having enough money to manage his food and lodging, he also pleaded with the people of these islands to extend possible help to him.
The beneficiary patients ought to avail all the benefits inclusive of tests and treatment under the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, but to its contrary, the management is reportedly exploiting the patients referred to some referral pvt hospitals by forcibly asking the patients to conduct tests separately at mainland.
Crippled by his spinal cord injury, as a hole in his spinal cord has been detected in the CT scan, Mr. Sarkar is fighting two battles- one he is struggling with pennilessness and the other one battling with serious health issues at mainland where the expectation of monetary help from others is of remote possibility.
Surprisingly when the patient asked the concerned Doctor to give a requirement of money in form of quotation so that the same can be used to request money from any possible donors, the Doctor reportedly refused to given any quotation in writing.
The administration of A & N Islands should immediately intervene in the matter so as to redress the undesired problems being faced by the indigent patients of these islands who are being badly treated, allegedly exploited and most importantly put in unpredictably miserable conditions by the management of the referral pvt. hospitals in Kolkata and elsewhere on the mainland, the people opined. They also emphasized on the re-introduction of the ANISHI in the islands, as well.
