New law soon to recover medical expenses

by Anura Maitipe

A new law will be soon introduced to recover medical expenses of state hospitals from insurance policy holders, Minister of Health Nimal Sriplala de Silva told the Sunday Observer.

He also said that government hospitals spend large sums of money on patients who are admitted to state hospitals following road accidents.

These patients make insurance claims from the insurance agents although they do not pay for treatment at state hospitals.If they had been treated at private hospital these patients will have to pay their hospital charges and their insurance agents will have to settle the bills. The new Act has also been enacted by the Ministry of Health to upgrade private health sector in the country.

He said the main objective of this Act was to improve the standard of treatment and medical care at private hospitals and nursing homes in the country.

Under the new Act private health institutions that maintain basic standards by providing quality services as stipulated by the Act will be given more incentives. Institutions that fail to maintain specific standards and quality services will be dealt with.

Our aim is to improve private sector health services to the level of those in India,Singapore and Hongkong. Once we reach that level we will be able to attract more foreign patients to our private hospitals.

We are processing resources such as doctors,nurses and medical technicians. Let us get together and make Sri Lanka a medical centre in the region, he said.