07 April 2010
Ahmedabad, India
EXCEPT for the U N Mehta Heart Hospital in the city, free medical treatment to critical patients is not provided for most part of the day in any hospital in the state.
According to Congress MLA from Shahpur, Gyasuddin Shaikh, this leads to several avoidable losses of life. The state government’s attention has been drawn to this.
Sources, said the government has spent Rs 30 lakh for providing free treatment and drugs to heart and critical pa tients at U N Mehta Heart Hospital in the last two years.
Another Rs 12 crore is spent every year under the 30 per cent government assistance to critically ill patients in the state.
“This means that by spending around Rs 36 crore in a year, the government can provide free medical treatment and drugs to such patients across Gujarat,” said Shaikh, who had raised the matter in the recently concluded Assembly Budget Session. “If the government agrees to this, it will be an act of great humanity and compassion towards the poor who can ill–afford to bear the exorbitant cost of treatment and therefore give up on getting the patient admitted in the hospital,” he said.
In the previous coordination meeting of civic officials and the local MPs and MLAs last week, Shaikh had emphasised that when a person suffered a stroke, the first priority of his relatives would be to take him to the nearest hospital and not the Civil Hospital. “In this scenario, if the government really wants to help the poor, then it must provide free treatment and drugs for the first 24 hours in hospitals across Gujarat,” he pointed out.
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