AFVOA Newletters of Year 2003

Page 97 of 170 as drivers, safaiwallahs etc will also be recruited. In general, support staff such as safaiwallahs etc will be outsourced. At least 60 % of the medical staff of ECHS polyclinics will be ex AMC officers. Where, at any particular polyclinic location, it is not possible to source a retired AMC officer for manning the ECHS, an ad hoc appointment for a period of ONE YEAR will be made of any suitable medical professional. The appointing authority will be the Station Commander. After one year, every effort will be made to enrol a retired AMC officer to fill up the vacancy. All ECHS appointments made will be on the authority of the Station Commander, and will enable the appointees to serve till the age of 65 years. Medicines 19. The Station Commander (whether of the rank of Lt Col, Col, Brig or their equivalents) will be authorised an account from which to pay for medicines or for services drawn from empanelled facilities. Payment will be made locally by means of a cheque within 60 days of the bills being presented. The bills, depending on the amount, will of course, have to be cleared by the CFA, but the cheques will in all cases be made locally and signed by the Station Commander. 20. It will not be the case that a member is made to wait or come another day to collect a prescribed medicine on the grounds that the concerned polyclinic has no stock of the same or that the purchase exceeds the daily cash approval for the concerned polyclinic. Any medicines required would be immediately indented from reputed chemists who will be “empanelled” based on the authority of the Station Commander. Membership ldentification-“SMART” ID Cards 21. A member will be issued with ONE primary card, and unto TWO add-on cards within a period of about a month or so after payment is made by MRO and documents presented at Station HQs. These membership ID cards will be SMART cards with a 16K memory, and will contain, on the obverse face, details concerning the member (pensioner), including his/her photograph, and on the reverse face, details of authorised dependents (up to 8 in numbers). The add –on cards will relate to the dependents of the member, and are meant to facilitate authorised dependents to avail of treatment under the ECHS even when a member and his/her dependents are not co-located at the time a requirement for treatment arises. The SMART cards will contain other data as described in succeeding paragraphs. 22. The SMART cards will need to be paid for by the member, and the rate per card will be decided after the tenders from SMART card vendors are finalized (the tenders were to have been opened on 01 Sep 2003 at New Delhi). 23. The SMART card will have embedded in its memory all treatment availed by a member under the ECHS previously. This will enable the history of the patient to be available immediately to the attending physicians at the polyclinic to which the member reports for treatment at any given time. (Similar treatment already availed under the ECHS will not be a bar to repetition of treatment, if necessary. For example, a member who has already undergone bypass surgery, will be eligible for yet another bypass procedure, should this be warranted by the medical condition). 24. The SMART card, when presented at a polyclinic by a member or an authorised dependent at a polyclinic, will be inserted into the SMART card reader by the receptionist at the polyclinic. Immediately, the photographs and personal particulars of the