IITB Hospital Medical Store privatised

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Recently, the IITB hospital medical store was changed to a private medical store against the previous government one. We reached out to the Hostel Affairs council in this regard. Here are the excerpts of the conversation we had with Pranshu Verma, Institute Secretary for Hostel Affairs.

• Why was the IITB Hospital Medical Store privatised?

► It was privatised to expand the variety of medicines in the store.

• What were the issues with the previous system especially when central government hospitals have their own stores and they are working just fine?

► One of the major issue was that students had to go to outside medical stores frequently because of limited variety of medicines.

• What were the costs involved in the change, if any ? Do we stand to make any monetary gain from this step ?

► There was no cost involved as such. Proper tendering was done. And we don’t know about any rental charge that the institute might be getting, but apart from that there is no monetary gain to the best of our knowledge.

Note: The increase in the medical fee from 1000 to 2000 includes the increased cost of the medical store which is 500 INR. A survey was floated today on Student Notices in regard to this and the increased coverage. You can find it here.

• Is this in anyway related to the increase in the medical coverage from 1 lac to 2 lac or the increase in the insurance fee ?

► No. The amount which was previously deducted from student’s fees was increased which led to the increase in the insurance cap.

• Prior to this, queues were never needed/required to get medicine at the counters, which is not the case right now. Why is this the case?

► Because of the privatisation, every medicine strip/bottle etc. needs to be updated in the computer before giving it to the patient and for the proof the patient needs to sign on the medical description provided by the doctor. This has increased the time of dispensing medicines and hence the queues.

• What are the overall benefits of this move for the community and do we gain anything from this?

► The main aim behind this move was that a wider variety of medicines will be available and their procurement procedure is more organised.