Govt sets up Committee to decide on User Charge imposition at AIIMS

New Delhi, Apr 5 (UNI) The Health Ministry has set up a high level committee to decide on the issue of user charges at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMs), which is being opposed by both the patients as well as the faculty members of the country's premier institute.

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters here last night that the Committee would deliberate on various modalities and structure of the user charges to be levied at AIIMS. The committee would give its recommendations within 15 to 20 days following which the government would take a decision on the contentious issue.

The issue has been widely protested by the hospital associations representing the faculty, resident doctors, students, nurses and employees of the AIIMS who had also organised a ''Black Day'' recently to protest against the levy of user charges from patients.

They had earlier written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Health Minister urging them to remove the charges introduced last November, as it will drive away poor patients from the hospital.

Asked about the recent resignation of many prominent doctors of AIIMS and disconment prevailing among the faculty members against Director P Venugopal, Dr Ramadoss said that the doctors have left for various reasons like more lucrative private jobs or going abroad.

Meanwhile, the government is considering the report of the Javed Chowdhary Committee which went into the functioning of AIIMS, Dr Ramdoss added.

He said "the Committee, which submitted its report about a month back, has given a lot of recommendations. ''Most of the recommendations of the committee, about 90 percent, would be accepted by the government''.

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