Mangaluru: Member of Parliament (MP) Nalin Kumar Kateel on Monday alleged that the centrally-sponsored Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme has become a daylight robbery by the private hospitals.
“Unfortunately, two among the seven beneficiaries of the scheme, who underwent surgeries and died on the day Atal Behari Vajpayee was being conferred the Bharat Ratna”, he said reviewing the district vigilance and monitoring committee meeting to review the progress of centrally-sponsored rural development projects.
Raising the issue of two deaths of woman and a girl from Panaje in Puttur after their surgery at Omega Hospital here under the scheme, Mr. Kateel alleged that the victims of surgeries did not have heart ailments.
“I have collected all the documents regarding the cases and verified them”, he stressed. The woman, who reportedly had high blood sugar was made to undergo heart surgery while the girl was suffering from depression and did not have any history of any heart ailment. How could the doctors diagnose a woman for heart ailment and later ask her husband to undergo surgery? the MP demanded to know.
Nalin Kumar Kateel did not agree with the District Health Officer Ramakrishna Rao that the victims had heart ailments “The government officials were ensuring profit for the private hospitals by getting more number of patients undergo surgery with the scheme”, he said.
Dr. Rao said that health camps and surgeries under the scheme has been suspended till the inquiry into death is complete. “From April, 2014 to February 2015, as many as 1,560 cases have been handled under the scheme by various hospitals in the district. A sum of Rs 9.9 crore is released”, he told the meeting.
Meanwhile, Kateel directed the health officer to visit each of the patients who underwent surgery atOmega Hospital and get their health condition checked and asked the state government to compensate the families of the victims.
