SHILLONG:
Founder and managing director of Supercare Hospital Dr Rangksan S Thangkhiew adviced people should get medical insurance considering the rising healthcare costs.
Addressing a press conference on October 22, he replied to a query on the exorbitant rates charged by private hospitals and said that people are usually not aware of the costs of medical equipment which is charged at a much higher rate by hospitals outside the state.
He said that their medical expenses should be covered by insurance and adviced the people of the state should take the benefit of Megha Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS).
Meanwhile, Medical Superintendent Dr Vinod Gondalia said that the government and the insurer should ensure that all hospitals get payment on time.
He said, “But this (the payment) is not happening. There are times when we do not get the payment for a year.”
The major highlight of the press conference was the hospital being granted full National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) accreditation which makes it the first and only hospital in Meghalaya to get full NABH accreditation.
Thangkhiew said that the hospital has a scope for improvement and aimed to make the hospital at par with national and international hospitals.
He added that all the equipment in the hospital has to be calibrated every six months. Gondalia said that the hospital is supposed to submit the report to NABH every three months.
Another aspect of the hospital as pointed out by Gondalia is that the hospital maintains the medical records of patients are in digital form and will not be a problem if patients’ records are lost or misplaced.
NABH is a constituent board of the Quality Council of India (QCI) set up to establish and operate accreditation programmes for healthcare organisations. The NABH is an institutional member as well as a board member of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (1SQua). Hospitals accredited by the NABH get international recognition.
The NABH standards are currently the highest benchmark standard for hospital quality in India. There are two versions of the standards for allopathic hospitals: the full NABH, suitable for large speciality and tertiary care-level hospitals, and entry-level NABH meant mainly for smaller hospitals that do not have the infrastructure and resources to comply with the full NABH.
Supercare Hospital received the NABH Entry-Level certification on October 5, 2021 and then secured the full NABH accreditation on September 29, 2022. This certification will be valid up to September 30, 2026.