VASCO: Slamming the BJP government over Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana (DDSSY), the government health insurance scheme, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Thursday claimed that many private hospitals in Goa including empanelled private hospital in Dabolim are not entertaining patients having DDSSY cards.
Addressing a press conference in Vasco, NCP President Jose Philip D’Souza claimed that the government while revising the DDSSY scheme, instead of increasing the insured amount, restricted the upper limit of insurance cover for family of four or more members to Rs 4 lakh.
He said that during Congress-NCP government, the insurance cover amount per person was Rs 1.5 lakh and benefit was given as per each person in family and not as one family. He also accused the government of launching the scheme with doing any home work. This, he said, has caused hardship to people as many empanelled private hospitals are not entertaining the patients having DDSSY cards.
“Our intention is to highlight the issue and tell the government that though they have formulated the scheme, people are not getting benefits the way they should get. We are pained to note that many empanelled private hospitals are not entertaining patients having DDSSY cards merely because the government launched the revised health insurance scheme without taking the hospitals into confidence,” he said.
“Also when we inquired with few empanelled hospitals in the State why they were not admitting the patients covered under DDSSY scheme, we were informed that they have not received any communication from the government for the scheme. Further, the private hospitals that treated patients under the scheme have not been paid their bills, as such, they hesitates to treat patients having DDSSY cards.”
He said that though the health department has identified two private hospitals for health scheme, they are not entertaining the patients; moreover these hospitals are located in Dabolim.
“If government fails to make corrections and does not take private hospitals into confidence, then, we would be forced to take second step which might be mass protest against the government,” he warned.
NCP Vasco block secretary Parshuram Shetye said, “Firstly, the government failed miserably to create awareness about the scheme. Similarly, instead of taking Aadhar card data to enroll the people into the scheme they made lengthy procedures to harass people. We have learnt that the United India Insurance is the official insurer for DDSSY scheme. However, they don’t have in-house settlement facilities due to which they have outsourced the claims though a third party settlement house namely Paramount Medical Services.”
“As of now, the third party has not paid the bills of many empanelled hospitals under DDSSY scheme due to which these hospitals are not treating DDSSY card holders,” he added.
