Hyderabad: Asserting that many “revolutionary steps” have been taken in the health sector, Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday said that his government values human lives, where top-class medical services are being made available to the poor in the last two and a half years and effectively fought against COVID-19.
Listing out various initiatives taken up by the government in the last two and half years, the chief minister stated that YSR Aarogyasri scope has been widened by increasing the income limit to Rs 5 lakh covering 95 per cent of the population in AP and is offering super speciality services from over 130 empanelled hospitals in cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore.
“Although the previous government tried to restrain the expenditures and left unpaid bills of Rs 680 crore to the network hospitals, we cleared all those arrears and even included expensive surgeries like bone-marrow transplantation, heart transplant, cochlear implants under Aarogyasri,” stated a press release from Jagan Mohan Reddy’s office. In the last 29 months, almost Rs 4000 crore was reportedly spent on Aarogyasri and brought 2466 procedures under the scheme, it added.
Further, Jagan Mohan Reddy stated that 16 new teaching hospitals are being set up in the state besides revamping the existing 11 medical colleges, ensuring that every parliamentary constituency has one teaching hospital, one nursing college, and a 500 bedded super-speciality hospital.
Even the tribal areas like Paderu will have a teaching hospital and five other ITDA’s are going to have super speciality medical services, he added. Besides these, the State government reportedly is taking measures to strengthen the health sector from the village level by developing 10,032 YSR Village Clinics, 560 Urban Health Clinics, 1321 PHCs, 52 Area Hospitals, 191 CHCs at a cost of Rs 16,255 crore.
The chief minister stated that the AP government is revamping all government hospitals across the state and equipping them with the best infrastructure, along with WHO and GMP standard medicines. He said that steps are being taken to strengthen the private institutions in the health sector by inviting them to set up super-speciality hospitals in the State and allocate 50 percent beds to Aarogyasri, as the government would provide land and offer complete support.