Health of the Poor in Ill-health
- The health of the poor at stake
- Implementation of Aarogyasri neglected right from the beginning
- Conspiracy to shelf a people-friendly scheme
Hyderabad: Since CM Chandrababu Naidu was back from his tour to China, he started application and implementation of Chinese proverbs. As an ancient proverb goes, a dog has to be marked mad if it has to be killed. Chandrababu has decided to apply this to the schemes introduced, implemented and accomplished by the previous Governments. He is getting ready to put Aarogyasri (Dr. NTR Vaidya Seva) scheme on the shelf.
A boon to the poor
Aarogyasri was a scheme introduced by ex.CM of Andhra Pradesh Dr. YS Rajasekhar Reddy to take care of the health needs of the poor. As part of this, white ration card holders were treated for their ailments under health insurance scheme. Lakhs of poor people in the state got health insurance because of this. Dr. YSR was soon worshipped as God for providing this opportunity. Naturally, this caused envy in Chandrababu Naidu.
Conspiracy after coming to power
It was decided to change the name of the scheme in order for them to easily divert its benefits. Aarogyasri scheme became NTR Vaidya Seva scheme. The number of health services included under this increased. But the funds allocated to this were cut down to a great extent. With this, payment to hospitals for the services taken by the patients got affected. Hence, hospitals in many places stopped accepting patients who would want to utilize the scheme. Threat of permanently shelving the scheme is expressed everywhere.
New Controversy
It is heard that the Government is intentionally delaying bill payment to the hospitals. Superspeciality hospital union leaders reveal that a payment of Rs.350 crore is still pending. Due to the Government’s indifference to repeated pleas, the hospitals came to a strong decision. They are planning to cease the health services unless the pending bills are paid. On the other hand, health minister Kamineni Srinivas is taking this very easy. He has announced that the bills would be paid by the 15th of next month and that services would continue. Poor patients are very concerned about this.
It is criticized that this is in fact what Chandrababu’s Government wants. It is argued that this scheme is being the target of demolition as it had brought reputation to Dr.YSR. Cut down of fund allocation to the scheme in the budget and delay in bill payment to the hospitals are adding to this criticism. Apparently the aim of the Government is to create dissatisfaction and discouragement in people towards the scheme. Recent happenings show why Chandrababu has been citing Chinese proverbs.
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