VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh Private Hospitals & Nursing Homes Association (APNA) president CSR Prasada Rao has expressed concern over the alleged harassment of small and medium private clinics, which provide treatment at low cost, by the government.
Talking to newsmen here on Thursday, Rao said various government departments were issuing directives to them and added that the directives were ‘unimplementable’.
He pointed out that there were about 350 clinics in Krishna district and 2,255 in Andhra Pradesh and added that these clinics were either run by a single doctor or a doctor couple who could deal with one or two government departments. He further said that these clinics provided treatment at minimal price and added that it had become a tough task for them to get permissions from about 14 different departments such as fire, environment, pollution control, municipality and so on.
For grant of a NOC from the fire department, they were expected to comply with a number of rules and the government was charging `10,000 every year for renewal of NOC. Many doctors were running their clinics from their residences, he said and added that no major fire accident had taken place in any of the small private clinics so far.
APNA secretary A Trimurthy Rao said that small and medium clincs/hospitals were going out of business with the government deciding that the patients should be treated under the Arogyasri Scheme -- renamed as NTR Vaidya Seva - only in hospitals which had a minimum of 50 beds.
He urged the government to make even 10-bed hospitals eligible to treat patients under the NTR Vaidya Seva scheme.