A meeting of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders here on Tuesday urged withdrawal of the user fee for tests and investigations recently introduced at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education (JIPMER).
CPM’s Puducherry state secretary, V Perumal, Arumugham of Cuddalore, Ezhimalai of Villupuram and T Murugan participated in the meeting.
JIPMER has in a circular dated July 14 introduced user charges for medical investigations at the JIPMER to be collected from patients with a declared income of atleast Rs 2,500 per month (both in-patients and out-patients) before conducting the tests or investigations. The circular was later modified and it was announced that user charges would be collected for the tests/investigations done in the departments of radiotherapy and nuclear medicine only.
According to Perumal, JIPMER has been giving free treatment to people from neighbouring Cuddalore and Villupuram. Patients from other states would also land here for quality treatment. But the decision to introduce user fee would deter the poor patients from approaching the hospital, he added.
Perumal said they also urged the JIPMER authorities to take steps to fill 1,734 vacancies (nurses, technicians, etc) at the earliest. He said that a convention of party leaders from Puducherry, Cuddalore and Villupuram would be held on August 21 to decide on the agitation to protest fee hike.
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