TIRUCHY: A rude shock awaited S Rajagopal (69) when he went for his monthly dialysis at Virudhachalam Government Hospital earlier this week. Officials in the hospital informed him that his CM Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme (CMCHIS) had been freezed.
However, the case of Rajagopal is not a one off incident. He is one among the 98,163 government employees and pensioners whose health cards have been freezed by the TneGA as part of the data purity project introduced by them.
"For years, I have been utilising the CM health card to take care of my father's dialysis treatment at the GH. Suddenly when I visited this time, they informed me that my card cannot be used anymore. Due to this, my father's monthly dialysis treatment has been delayed," said, Shiva Kumar, kin of Rajagopal.
Incidentally, the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project, as per the direction of the State government, handed over Unique URN IDs in the health insurance scheme to the TN e-governance agency. The agency, through verification, removed a total of 11,46,460 members from the health insurance scheme. Out of this, 10,48,297 cards were removed due to duplicate and invalid ration card numbers, while 98,163 ration cards were removed as they had registered with both CM Health Insurance Scheme and New Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), a unique insurance scheme, solely for the government employees and pensioners.
A senior official from the department, said, "The health system project over the years approved all the health insurance applications which bore the signature of VAO which is the norm. However, government employees and pensioners are not eligible for the scheme and they can avail insurance only under the NHIS. Due to this, the government was incurring additional costs as they were paying for the same beneficiary under two schemes. Following the purity drive, the government has remitted insurance payment for 1.37 crore health insurance schemes which were deemed original."
Unaware about the development, several elderly people including pensioners have been visiting various health insurance enrollment offices seeking reasons for their card being freezed causing confusion and chaos in the centers.