Reacting to the one month notice given by the Andhra Pradesh Nursing Homes Association (APNHA), government of Andhra Pradesh had invited the Association members to give a hearing to their grievances.

Since past few years the APNHA members have been demanding 30 per cent hike in the healthcare charges for treating Arogyasri patients in the private hospitals. But the state government had ignored their demands since long. APNHA has thus issued an ultimatum to the state government saying that they will not treat the Arogyasri patients until the governments agrees to their demands and increase a 30 per cent hike in the hospital charges.

Reacting to the notice given by the association to quit the health scheme, the Arogyasri Health Care Trust invited the aggrieved doctors of super-speciality hospitals and nursing homes for a discussion. The doctors repeated their demand of 30 per cent reimbursement and compensation for evaluation of patients at the out-patient level. The doctors also sought a recommendation from the trust.

The doctors have put forward a set of recommendations to the Kondru Murali Mohan, Minister for Health and Medical education, requesting him to consider their demands for treating Arogyasri patients. Apart from the 30 per cent reimbursement, the associations have also demanded a ten per cent hike every year. Dr Krishna Prasad, of Andhra Pradesh Nursing Homes Association, said, “We want a system wherein every financial year there is a ten per cent hike. These reimbursements must be worked out now as we have been explaining our problems to the Arogyasri Health Care Trust for the last two years. We can’t appeal or beg the government every year. We want a onetime solution.”

In Andhra Pradesh there are 350 small and big nursing homes and hospitals which have been covered under the ambit of Arogyasri scheme. Apart from this the government had also included 40 super-speciality hospitals to treat patients under Arogyasri. Since the beginning of the scheme the government has not increased the treatment charges in these hospitals. “We are suffering 42 per cent loss in treating Aroyasri patients. As the maintenance costs and treatment costs have increased many folds we want the government to implement a 30 per cent hike in the treatment charges, otherwise we have no option but to quit from the scheme,” said Saluja, past president of APNHA.