CMC Vellore to reach out to local communities to provide better healthcare: director

CMC Hospital in Vellore & Ranipet to provide outreach initiatives to local communities to access healthcare facilities. Separate wards opened to handle cases under CM's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme & PMJAY Scheme. CMC has given treatment to poor families & is setting up catalogue of emergency services. During Covid-19, CMC provided services to 1,500 patients & helped Vellore attain lowest mortality rate in India.

The Christian Medical College (CMC) Hospital in Vellore and its Ranipet campus, will organise outreach initiatives for local communities especially in Vellore and surrounding areas, to enable poor families to access healthcare facilities at the hospital, said Vikram Mathews, director, CMC, on Thursday.

Briefing media persons at the CMC main campus in Vellore, Dr. Mathews said that the opening of separate wards at the Vellore and Ranipet campuses to handle cases under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme (Innuyir Kaapoom-Nammai Kaakkum 48 scheme) and Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY Scheme), was aimed at reaching out to local communities as they are the immediate beneficiaries under these schemes. “We are not anti-poor. In 2022-23 alone, we have given treatment to poor families under concessional rates to a tune of ₹309 crore. No other private hospital has done it,” he said.

Dr. Mathews said that initially, CMC had set up the specialised ward only in Vellore, where it has received more than 100 patients since it was opened in September. This then prompted the hospital to start a similar ward at its Ranipet campus. Around 1,600 patients have been treated by the hospital under the Innuyir Kaapoom-Nammai Kaakkum 48 (emergency care) scheme of the State government, since the scheme was inaugurated in 2021, he said.

The CMC director said that the hospital is in the process of preparing a catalogue of emergency services available at the institution. Such an effort will help patients and their relatives to avail of these facilities easily. Treatment for various ailments is being given in the general ward of the hospital for poor patients, he added.

Further, he said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the hospital continued its services to affected persons, with, on an average, 1,500 patients being treated during the peak of the infection, in spite of huge losses incurred by the hospital management for providing treatment during such harsh times. This service by CMC helped Vellore attain the lowest mortality rate in the country during Covid-19, he said.

I. Rajesh, medical superintendent, CMC was also present on the occasion.