State reworks incentives to attract specialists

In an attempt to decongest major district hospitals and medical college hospitals across the state, the Department of Health and Family Welfare has now reworked on the incentives to be distributed among the staff.

Previously, 30% of the package amount was given to all government hospitals alike for the procedures performed under government schemes. In a recent government order, the department has reworked the incentive slabs and provided smaller government setups a push.

The state government is now trying to attract specialists into government hospitals by fixing the incentives for procedures performed in a government hospital under government schemes in primary health centres, community health centres and taluk hospitals to 30% of the total cost of the procedure.

“Now, there are 1,700 procedures in all. The idea is to ensure that staff working in all government hospitals are incentivised equally. This will also reduce the burden on medical college hospitals. If all staff, medical and paramedical, are paid well, it will also bring down the number of referrals,” said Dr T S Prabhakar. Previously, all government hospitals were getting a 30% incentive.

The rationale, they say, behind the government order is to attract specialists to work in these hospitals. The government has been trying to attract specialists to perform procedures under the Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka scheme.

The percentage in new medical colleges and district hospitals has been fixed at 20% of hospitals.

“There is a higher number of procedures being done by the district hospitals and an even higher number of procedures performed by medical college hospitals. Hence the incentive percentage is fixed at a marginally lower level in order to be on a par with
the primary/community health centres and taluk hospitals,” according to the Health department. Old medical colleges and tertiary care hospitals will get 15% package rates now.

Incentives

The department has said that no incentives will be given to any staff who takes leave for over 10 days a month, except in case of maternity or medically terminated pregnancies.