Leaders of the United Teachers’ Federation (UTF) have urged authorities to ensure that the government employees and teachers who were infected by COVID-19 are given treatment at network hospitals on their existing health cards.
In a statement on Tuesday, UTF State president Shaik Sabjee and general secretary P. Babu Reddy said that the Dr. YSR Aarogyasri Health Care Trust CEO had issued orders last month asking all network hospitals to extend COVID-19 treatment to government employees on health cards.
The Medical and Health Department officials, and even Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, had announced the same but the hospitals did not implement it, they complained.
They said when teachers who had contracted the virus went to these hospitals for treatment with their Employees Health Scheme (EHS) cards, they were turned back on the excuse that no beds were available. But the same hospitals were admitting people who deposited exorbitant amounts of money as advance payment. They said that a government employee, a teacher or a pensioner would not be in a position to spend lakhs of rupees on medical care.
The UTF teachers said that it was unfortunate that the employees were unable to utilise their their monthly contributions for the health card at times like this when they needed it the most.
They urged the Chief Minister to intervene and initiate stringent action against hospital managements who were trying to take undue advantage of the situation.
