DIMAPUR, SEPTEMBER 6 (MExN): The Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF) today called for a revision of treatment rates at the Referral Hospital, Dimapur. Beside this, the NPRAFF, in a press release, also questioned the working system of the hospital and several other management related issues.
It observed that the hospital “has become more of commercial center rather than service to people of North Eastern States, which was revitalized with an estimated project cost of Rs 4,012.92 lakh after the hospital remained dormant.”
The hospital is being run by the Christian Institute of Health Science and Research (CIHSR) after the Nagaland Government signed an MoU with Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA), New Delhi and Christian Medical Centre (CMC), Vellore in 2005.
It noted that while the Nagaland Government provided the land and buildings for free to the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA), the MoU however states that “all legal and financial liabilities that might arise in running CIHSR will be that of society, even though the hospital is directly managed by Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA),”
This “amounts to privilege without responsibilities,” the NPRAAF said, urging that the MoU must be rectified to make EHA “accountable for any financial mismanagement or any legal liability arising in management of the Hospital which is appropriate.”
It further informed that the Government of India had sanctioned Rs 3,561.56 lakhs as 90 percent from the total cost of the project to vitalize the hospital in 2004. “The EHA did not spend on its own a single penny on the ground of non-profit venture,” it claimed.
The NPRAAF therefore stated that “health care benefit should go to the people of Nagaland in particular at a very low cost.” “Poor patients find it hard to afford treatment even though, cost is marginally lower in comparison with the private hospitals and 70 percent of patients come from outside the state. The CIHSR board should ensure that, rates of treatment are revised to serve the objective it espoused,” the forum said. It meanwhile expected that the hospital render better health care at an affordable cost without profit motive as envisaged in the MoU.
It also questioned whether the establishment of a nursing college and the process of establishing a medical college inside the hospital perimeter was done with approval of the state government. The EHA in the cover of CIHSR should not venture something that could go beyond its contract term, it stated.
The forum also suggested that the given the proposal to establish a medical college in Kohima, the state government should “take note that, feasibility of public medical college would be best at the premises of Referral hospital Dimapur which has all the facilities for the students.”
Further, the forum asked the state government to ensure employment of local people in the hospital, claiming that out of about 250 employees only a “handful of locals are employed, which is not in conformity with the agreed terms and conditions.”
