Mangaluru : Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka health schemes and Health Department officials in the city next week to sort out many issues pertaining to the scheme in private hospitals said, Minister in-charge of Dakshina Kannada U.T. Khader said here on Thursday.

The Minister said that the District Hospital Committee will be reconstituted by nominating some members of the zilla panchayat as members of the committee.

Speaking at the general body meeting of the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat, the Minister said that issues related to the health scheme will be resolved in the presence of the Deputy Commissioner, the Chief Executive Officer of the zilla panchayat, the District Health and Family Welfare Officer, the District Surgeon, the Medical Superintendent of Government Wenlock Hospital, the Nodal Officer and Co-ordinator of the scheme and heads of 24 private hospitals empanelled under the scheme.

The Minister said that he will review the functioning and issues concerned in the implementation of the scheme every month.

Earlier, many members of the zilla panchayat said that private hospitals are demanding from patients admitted under emergency conditions to produce referral letters from the Government Wenlock Hospital to get free treatment/concession under the health schemes. Otherwise, they charge the usual hospital fee for treatment. This was unfair, they said.

The members also said that the Government Wenlock Hospital referred some patients to private hospitals where treatment for certain diseases and disorders was not available. Replying to this, Medical Superintendent and District Surgeon, Wenlock Hospital, H.R. Rajeshwari Devi said that in some medical cases diagnosis took some days. Whether a particular hospital, where the patient referred has been admitted, is competent to treat the disease or disorder will be known only after the diagnosis, which at times takes five or six days, is completed. Hence, it is not proper to say that Wenlock Hospital referred patients to hospitals where treatment was not available.

To a question on many government departments not shifting their taluk-level offices to the newly constituted Kadaba and Moodbidri taluks, the Minister said that the particular issue will be addressed within a month. Due to Lok Sabha elections and the poll code, many government offices could not open their taluk-level offices, he said.

President of the panchayat Meenakshi Shantigodu and Chief Executive Officer of the panchayat Selvamani R. were present.