The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has alleged that certain corrupt officers in Delhi are blocking the efforts to digitize bill payments for private hospitals and labs, which is intended to bring transparency and reduce corruption in handling Rs 1,000 crore in annual payments.
It has further alleged that these officers, along with the Lieutenant Governor (LG), are advocating for a flawed Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) that lacks crucial modules for Mohalla Clinics, the Delhi Arogya Kosh (DAK) and Farishtey schemes, and outsourced labs.
Signaling towards a plausible collusion, the AAP stated that the HIMS was earlier tendered to an IT company, however, after one year of engagement, the company was unable to complete the work, and therefore their contract was terminated in 2023.
Thereafter, the new Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj himself visited several hospitals where the NIC and C-DAC HIMS system was implemented. There were discussions with both NIC and C-DAC about the specific requirements for developing modules of Mohalla Clinics, their outsourced Labs, DAK, Farishtey schemes of the Delhi Government, and both PSUs were asked to confirm if they will be able to develop modules for these Delhi government schemes.
It was only the C-DAC, which committed that they will be providing these modules specific to the Delhi government, the AAP said in a statement on Wednesday.
It further said that the Health Department is responsible for processing bills of medicines for suppliers/ manufacturers, processing bills of private hospitals for DAK schemes and processing bills of the private outsourced laboratories. According to the party, these bills run into more than Rs 1,000 crores yearly, and further claimed that there have been allegations on a group of officers in the Health department that they process bills of vendors only when their demands of bribes are accepted.