Vijayawada: Private network hospitals under the aegis of Andhra Pradesh Speciality Hospital Association (Asha) announced the suspension of free health care services offered under Dr NTR Vaidya Seva Trust scheme to poor patients from Wednesday over pending dues of Rs 3,000 crore. The dues were to be paid by the state govt to network hospitals for cashless treatment services under the scheme.
In a release issued on Tuesday, Asha said the state govt, which promised to clear the pending dues by December last year, has not released any funds so far. In addition, the arrears have further increased in the last three months, making it difficult to survive.
It also found fault with the govt’s proposed Universal Health Scheme (UHS) and questioned how it can introduce the new scheme without clearing the dues of the old scheme. It also objected that the rates for UHS packages have not been decided and that it would be impossible to implement the same rates as in 2017 for UHC as well.
“The govt assured to clear all dues under a one-time settlement scheme but there has been no discussion in that regard. Also, there is no amendment to various packages. There was no participation of Asha in the designing of UHS,” the private network hospitals said.
In such a situation, the NTR Vaidya Seva scheme, which the state govt is undertaking with great ambition under the slogan of better corporate healthcare for the poor, will struggle to achieve its goal, the network hospitals further said. Asha state working group has appealed to the public to cooperate and support the agitation being undertaken by NTR Vaidya Seva network hospitals in the state.
