Mangalore : The National Insurances Co, has brought a health insurance card called Vipul Medcard these days to cover medical expenses incurred by its clients in hospitals, but the company is harassing them while making payments in relief.

Sathish Shriyan (50) had purchased a Medcard in 2008 through the good offices of his Trawl boat Ice Plant, where he is employed. An year back, he was injured on the head by a machine part at work. He started getting pains later on and was admitted to the city KMC hospital at Jyothi Circle on July 22 and was treated for 16 days incurring an expenditure of 76,000 rupees, at the hospital. He also spent on medicines separately.
He approached the NIC for reimbursement of these bills, but the insurance officials gave various pretexts and avoided payment to the client, who informed Mega Media and other newsmen that he was insured medically since about 2 years and was harassed now. The NIC officials denied compensation for bone treatment and refused to pay any relief before 2 years of Medcard period was completed.

The poor client had to seek help from Tulunadu Rakshana Sene to secure medical relief when all attempts failed to bring insurances money. Yogish Shetty of TR Sene and his activist friends stormed into the Balmatta office of the NIC this morning,  but as it was a second Saturday holiday, only a couple of employees had attended the office, and they tried to run away on seeing Tulu Sene workers barging into their office. One of the NIC employees phoned up the Manger and explained the entry of TR Sene activists to him.

Manager Sashidhar Rao came to the NIC office and assured the Sene members that the bills of S. Shriyan would be paid in the next 4 days and he should stay at the Hospital till then. The additional expenses on stay (4 days) also would be paid to the concerned authorities, Rao informed, bringing an end to the harassment of the patient / client of MC.