Tamil Nadu Health Development Association (TNHDA), a non-governmental organization focusing health area in Tamil Nadu, has urged the state government to invest the Rs 573 crore for the development of government hospitals rather than investing it with private insurance companies to implement government health insurance schemes.

For giving insurance coverage to poor families, the state government has introduced a life saving insurance scheme and invested Rs 573 crore with Star Health Insurance. For each life saving treatment, including cardiac surgeries, the insurance company will give the patient Rs1 lakh. But, TNHDA wanted the government to utilize the money to strengthen facilities in the government hospitals and medical colleges so as to enable the whole public to access the high-tech facilities and medical expertise available there.

Since all the major surgeries are of prohibitive cost, the patients would have to bear a significant share of it if they are done in private hospitals. Where as, if the operation is performed in a government hospital, there won't be any operation theatre charge or post-operative costs on the patients. Besides the medical and surgical expertise of the hospitals can be used properly for the whole population, said Dr Rex Sargunam, president of the Association.

He said the government's present scheme would help benefit only the private hospitals. Recently, the Government Stanley Hospital in Chennai has successfully performed a Liver Transplant Operation on a patient partly funded by the Government's Insurance Scheme. According to doctors of the hospital, if it were done in some private hospitals, it would have cost lakhs of rupees. Citing the case as an example, the TNHDA office-bearers said the government should spend the insurance investment for the sake of improving the whole structure of the government hospitals including cleanliness and sanitation. With little more finance and political will of the government's side, the scheme would be advantageous to the whole people of the state to get quality medical care for all the major ailments affecting heart, brain, kidney..etc. They said, 90 per cent of the population's capacity is beyond the reach of the private hospitals.

According to sources, In Tamil Nadu, there are 1539 Public Health Centres, 385 Community Health Centres, 276 Taluk Head Quarter Hospitals, 31 District Hospitals and 15 Medical Colleges in the government sector. Besides, the eight Municipal Corporations own more than 500 hospitals. As a next step of development, now the government plans to establish each medical college in each district.

The association has hailed the recent initiative of the government supplying Blood Clotting & Bleeding Disorder Factors (Factors VIII, IX, XI and products bypassing the clotting factor inhibitors) free of cost to all government hospitals and Haemophiliac Societies. According to TNHDA, in Tamil Nadu, Haemophilia affects approximately 4000 males including children who require life long treatment costing around Rupees one lakh annually.