Hospitals reject Anadhra Pradesh health cards

The AP government had issued the cards to all employees last month and the amount covered was also increased to Rs 2.5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh. The government has decided to deduct Rs 90 to Rs 120 per month from the employees’ salaries depending on their pay scales from November. The amount will go to the Aarogyaasri Trust.

The AP government has extended the same package, which it is implementing for poor people under the NTR Vaidya Seva, to the government employees. As per the package, private hospitals have to provide free treatment to out-patients while they can charge as per the agreed rate for in-patients.

The private corporate hospitals, however, have informed the government that they cannot provide medical facilities to government employees on par with poor people under the NTR Vaidya Seva scheme. They are demanding standard scheduled rates for out-patients and payment of the actual expenditure for in-patients.

The government, however, is not willing to budge. It pays Rs 10-Rs 12 crore to the Andhra Pradesh Super Specialty Hospitals’ Association every month for the medical facilities provided by them under the NTR Vaidya Seva scheme.

In Andhra Pradesh, there are around 110 super-specialty and single-specialty hospitals under ASHA, and according to sources, the government had threatened the hospitals that it will stop payments if they do not provide medical facilities to government employees. Following this, 11 private corporate hospitals had agreed to provide medical facilities to the government employees.

However, ASHA president P.V. Ramana Murthy, said that no hospital had agreed to providing these facilities yet and negotiations were still going on with the government.

Mr Murthy wondered how they could treat poor people and government employees as the same. He added that it would not be fair on the hospitals if employees were allowed under the scheme.