Following National Health Mission (NHM) Manipur’s move to scrap the grant of 57 specific laboratory tests at RIMS, Imphal, an official from RIMS has clarified that the move had been initiated as per NHM Manipur’s guidelines to provide the grant only till district level hospitals.
“RIMS is a premier medical institute of Manipur and as per their guidelines the grant for free lab tests will be provided only upto district level hospitals,” he said.
Speaking to Imphal Free Press, the RIMS official disclosed that NHM Manipur notified RIMS about the grant abrogation on March 1, 2024 following which RIMS also published notification about stopping the free tests on March 30, 2024.
As per their notification the free tests provision under the NHM grant will still be available in 85 state health facilities, he added.
He stated that RIMS would now collect a nominal fee for the 57 tests fixed during the 30th Standing Finance Committee held in 2018.
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“The charges for the tests is very small to make it affordable for out-patients. For in-patients, all the tests are completely free,” he said.
He highlighted that the charges for the same tests in private testing institutes would be 5-10 times more.
Other government health provisions such as CMHT and other central health schemes are feasible at RIMS, he said.
He stated that RIMS had been providing free medical treatment to displaced people and those affected by the conflict till now and exuded confidence that the tests charges would be affordable for the general public.
Meanwhile, State Mission director of NHM Manipur N Somorjit declined to comment on the new order.
