Mediciti, National Insurance jointly offer health plan

More medical insurance schemes

City-based Mediciti Hospitals and National Insurance Company have come together to offer a new health plan which covers existing illnesses. The policies will be administered by the Pine-based MD India Health Care, a third party administrator.

Describing the health plan as a unique one among the existing health plans offered by the hospitals in the country, Mediciti chief executive officer B Narayanswamy told media persons that the premium had been fixed at Rs 430 per annum for a sum assured of Rs 25,000.

The scheme offers the benefits of a 'floater' policy which enables either one or all of the family members to utilise the insured sum for treatment.

Narayanswamy said the existing diseases would not be covered for the first six months of the plan. The plan also would not cover illness/conditions/complications arising out of six diseases "� organ transplant, joint replacement, chronic renal failure, cost of pace maker, alcoholic sclerosis and HIV/AIDS, he said.

R Vijai Kumar, director (medical services) at Mediciti, said that Mediciti was adopting a 100-km stretch of National Highway-7 from Shamshabad to Jadcherla to provide instant medical aid to road accident victims.

The service would be offered free of cost. The hospital had already lined up two mobile ambulance vans and tied up with local nursing homes along the 100-km stretch to get preliminary aid to the patients during the 'golden hour', ie, the first hour of the accident.

After the first aid by the mobile paramedic staff and preliminary treatment at a nearby nursing home, the accident victims would be shifted to Mediciti or any other hospital that the patient chooses.

Stating that the hospital had set up a toll-free telephone number "� 1600 33 4056 "� Narayanswamy, however, regretted that the government was yet to act on making the toll free service accessible on mobile phones.

The free emergency medical service on the national highway would be implemented in co-ordination with Hyderabad police and the Andhra Pradesh Road Safety Authority, he said.

K Krishnaiah, director of the orthopaedic department at Mediciti, said that the hospital had put in place a multi-disciplinary team of medical professionals to deal with all kinds of emergencies.

The highway service was being offered free by the hospital keeping in view the alarming rate of road accidents.

Well-trained paramedics, along with doctors, would be stationed at two points along the stretch so as to reach out to any accident victim within 45 minutes to one hour, Krishnaiah said.

On the other initiatives of Mediciti Hospitals, Vijai Kumar said that the hospital was carrying out research in the areas of cervix cancer, HIV and child health. The first two projects are being conducted with the help of John Hopkins Institute of US.

The child health research is being supported by Department of Women and Child Development's (DWCD) Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) project.

The other initiatives of the hospital are REACH (Rural Effective Affordable Comprehensive Health Care) and Mediciti Immunology and Infectious Diseases Research Institute. The institute conducts research on new and innovative ways to manage infectious diseases including HIV.