Bhubaneswar, June 2: Patients are unhappy as the Capital Hospital has raised its user fee from Rs 2 to Rs 5 per patient.

The hospital authorities said the major part of the earlier fee was spent on maintaining a database of the patients.

According to them, the extra money would help them properly maintain the health facility.

However, people are unhappy with the decision taken by the Rogi Kalyan Samiti, which looks into overall functioning of the hospital.

The samiti is a committee, headed by the district collector, and its other members include director of the hospital, local MLAs and officials and representatives of other health institutions and government health wings.

Patients complained that earlier the treatment was free. Then the authorities introduced the fee of Rs 2, and now, again they increased it.

"Are they going to compete with private hospitals? In the city, this was the only hospital for poor people, as we could get treatment for free. Within 10 months of introducing the user fee, they have again increased it to Rs 5," said Sushant Nath, an attendant of a patient.

Capital Hospital started collecting user fee from August 6 last year. Patients had to pay Rs 2 for registering their names. It was done to keep digital database of the patients' health profile.

The hospital keeps data of all its patients through a digitised central registration system that helps them to keep track of the number of patients and types of diseases.

Hospital director Biswa Bhusan Patnaik said the user fee was raised following a meeting of the samiti, and it was done for the good of the people.

"The new fee will be used to provide better facilities to patients. The money will directly go to the samiti that looks into all these things," said Patnaik.