Says Sena on BMC’s proposal to charge extra for healthcare
Says Sena on BMC’s proposal to charge extra for healthcare
While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed to levy extra health service fee on patients who arrive from outside the city for medical treatment, Shiv Sena the ruling party wants it to be levied only on patients from other states and not on patients from anywhere in Maharashtra.
Shiv Sena corporator and standing committee chairman Shailesh Phanse said that it will be an injustice to charge extra health service charges on people from other parts of Maharashtra as they are also citizens of the state. But patients from other states should be levied extra charges in municipal hospitals, Mr Phanse said.
While presenting the budget for the year 2016-17, civic chief Ajoy Mehta had proposed an extra service charge for the patients, who come to municipal hospitals for treatment from other cities.
The BMC has, for many years, been charging health service charges for all patients both living in the city and outside. However, the outside patients will now be charged more, said civic officials. Mr Mehta said, “BMC spends over Rs 3,600 crore on health and gives quality service at low costs. But it gets revenue of only Rs 248 crore, which is only 6.74 per cent of the total spending on health care facilities. Hence, health service charges will be levied extra on patients arriving from outside Mumbai. They may be from neighbouring cities like Pune, Kalyan or from other states.”
According to the civic officials, the service charges for health care were determined in the year 2000 and over the past 15 years, there is substantial increase in the cost of services. About 45 per cent of the total patients treated by the BMC hospitals are residents of areas outside Mumbai.
However, opposition parties have opposed the move. “People from outside the city are also Indians. We will not allow the BMC to charge extra charge for them,” said Congress’s Devendra Amberkar.
