Hyderabad: The delay of Telangana Health department officials in clearing the pending bills has become a curse to the beneficiaries of the Aarogyasri scheme. As the Telangana Network Hospitals Association (TNHA) is not being paid since a year, the services are going to be hit. Beginning Saturday, Aarogyasri and Employee Health scheme(EHS) are going to be stopped across Telangana, said, TNHA members. Medical examinations at the outpatient services have already been stopped over the last ten days. From Saturday, all the inpatient services and emergency services will be stopped.

This move by the private hospitals is causing a lot of inconvenuience for the Aarogyasri scheme users. Aarogyasri, Telangana health department have been issued notices by the association 20 days ago but there was no response from them, it is learned.

The irony is that Medical health department secretary Shanta Kumari, CEO of Aarogyasri Manik Raj and other top rung officials are on an official tour, in the state of Maharashtra. They have also been on three similar insignificant tours in the month of November. The caretaker government is running the state and in such crucial times officials are going on tours which has led to fingers being pointed at them.

In Telangana, a total of 236 private network and 96 government network hospitals are providing services under the scheme. There other 67 dental hospitals only for EHS patients but not Aarogyasri patients. The total number stands at 303 hospitals along with dental treatments. The government’s delay in clearing the pending bills is apparently pushing hospitals into a state of bankruptcy, the private hospitals network has resorted to the extreme measure of halting the services. Every day, 10000 patients for OP, 3000 for inpatient visit these hospitals. On an average a total of 1000 patients get operated, stalling of operations and surgeries is a curse like situation for those in need.

Dr. Rakesh, president of the Telangana Network Hospitals Association said that the government has stopped clearing of bills since 12 months, which now stands at a staggering Rs 1,200 crores. Government officials said they have paid Rs 150 crores to the hospitals but we do not know who has received that money. If the government is running out of money, why do they want to continue Aarogyasri and EHS, he questioned.

Also Read: Telangana Govt Owes Hyderabad Hospitals Rs 1200 Crores Under Arogyasri

However, the Medical Health department officials said that pending bills are not Rs 1,200 crores as the TNHA argues. The amount to be paid is around Rs 350 crores of which Rs 150 crores is already released in the past two days. Now, only Rs 200 crores is pending and only because of political reasons they are threatening to stop the services, said officials from Telangana Health department.