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.
