The question: Are there any hurdles in the distribution of free drugs to government hospitals, including medical college hospitals?
The Answer: None.
This is the answer given by the Health Minister Veena George to one of the questions raised in the House by Chandy Oommen.
However, the drugs shortage that government hospitals began experiencing since October last year, has been continuing even in the new financial year.
Many medicines remain out of stock and medical colleges are forced to stop cardiac surgeries because of the shortage of stents or other essential implements every few months because of the huge arrears that the government owes pharma companies.
The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that most hospital development societies too are scraping at the bottom of their reserve and often do not have the funds to make local purchases.
The HDS reserves have been affected because the arrears that the government owes hospitals, both public and private, for providing free treatment under Karunya Arogya Suraksha Padhati (KASP) has been climbing steadily.
When private hospitals threaten to withdraw from the scheme, the government coughs up a few crores to pay up the dues. But public hospitals cannot utilise such pressure tactics and are on the brink of financial ruin.
The dues that the government owes public hospitals under KASP and various free medical care schemes for the poor is mind boggling.
According to the government’s own figures given in the Assembly, the money that it owes pharma companies as on June 14 this year is ₹615.26 crore.
The amount government owes public hospitals under KASP is ₹926.31 crore and the arrears owed to private hospitals under KASP is ₹329.50 crore
Kerala might have won awards for providing free treatment to the maximum number of people, to the tune of ₹1,600 crore. That public hospitals have been left gasping for funds since the past three years is the other side of the story that the government chooses to brush under the carpet. Yet the budgetary allocation for KASP in this financial year too has only been ₹678.54 crore.
Huge arrears have been run up under the free treatment schemes for the poor, run through public hospitals. These include Arogyakiranam (₹3.99 crore); Karunya Benevolent Fund (₹217.68 crore); Hridyam (₹10.12 crore); JSSK (₹34.87 crore); RBSK (₹10.12 crore).
The State has not received any Central funds (₹637 crore) for the NHM programmes in 2023-24 and has brought many crucial public health activities to a standstill, Ms. Veena said in the Assembly last week.
