PMCH and (above) IGIMS

Patna, May 24: Over 60 lakh below poverty line (BPL) families of Bihar being covered by the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) would now get the benefits of the scheme even during their treatment in government hospitals. A decision to this effect got approved in today’s cabinet meeting.

Under the scheme, the BPL families are given smart cards using which a family can get free treatment for up to Rs 30,000 in a year. Under this scheme, the beneficiaries were entitled to take free services of those private hospitals and nursing homes, which are registered in the scheme.

“After the cabinet’s approval, the beneficiaries would get the same facility in government hospitals as well as in premier institutions like Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) and Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Science (IGIMS),” a senior health department official told The Telegraph.

He said though most services and medicines in government hospitals are provided free of cost, but in case during the course of the treatment if anyone needs to avail any service or buy medicines from the market, then the cost would be borne by the hospital and the insured amount for different kind of treatments would be reimbursed by the insurance company to the hospital.

He also said in case the money received from the insurance company for a particular type of treatment is more than the sum spent on the treatment of the patient, then 75 per cent of the excess money would be put in patients’ welfare fund, while remaining 25 per cent would be given as special incentive to doctors and para medical staff who treated them.

Another major decision in today’s meeting was related to the dynamic assured career promotion (ACP) to those doctors who joined the medical education service after serving few years in health services.

“The service length of health services would also be counted while giving benefits of dynamic ACP to such doctors,” cabinet co-ordination department principal secretary Ravikant told reporters in the post-cabinet press briefing.

Around 500 doctors of medical education services would benefit from the decision.

Regarding computer knowledge of personnel of clerical and secretariat services, the cabinet decided that these personnel would have to appear in the examinations conducted by DOEACC society for getting salary increments.

According to rules, these personnel would get increments only after clearing the examination in which their knowledge of computers would be tested. Earlier, the said examination was to be conducted by the state staff selection board. As the board could not conduct the exams, it was decided to use the examination conducted by DOEACC society for computer courses.