From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji

Panaji, Dec 24: Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said that Maharashtra government will ink a Memorandum of Understanding with Goa counterpart, this week, to empanel state run Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) under latter’s Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana.

Rane said that after signing of the MoU, all the cardholders of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana of Maharashtra government would be eligible to avail free medical treatment at GMCH.

From this January onward, state government had started charging patients who are not from Goa as the hospital was getting overloaded with admissions and referrals from outside the State specially from the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Rane told reporters on Monday that GMCH dean Dr Pradip Naik would be signing MoU on behalf of Goa government extending the facilities of the hospital to Maharashtra residents.

The minister said that the details of MoU were finalized through a video-conferencing between him and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadanavis, last week.

“There were some issues which needed to be discussed, which were sorted out during discussion with Maharashtra CM,” he said adding that though the patients from Maharashtra were allowed treatment free of cost in GMCH, the decision to charge them was taken considering the increasing load on this facility.