Aarogyasri Trust to hospitals:Restore services

HYDERABAD: The Aarogyasri Health Care Trust has asked network hospitals to restore routine services to beneficiaries with immediate effect ‘taking all precautionary measures to prevent infection.’ Most of these hospitals had kept the services on hold after the outbreak of the pandemic. Meanwhile, network hospitals, say they are finding it difficult to run day-to-day services.

According to hospitals, Rs 1,000 crore Aarogyasri funds are due. “We are unable to give salaries for the past three months as most hospitals have pending bills. Regular patients are not being treated by many hospitals,” said T Hari Prakash, president, Telangana Aarogyasri Network Hospitals Association. Surgeons working at these hospitals have gone into hibernation after the outbreak. “Since a few surgeons contracted the virus after performing surgeries in the initial days of the outbreak, many are not willing to undertake operations. As a result many hospitals have not been conducting routine surgeries for BPL patients and now we are not in a position to continue unless funds are released,” added the representative.