Ex-sevicemen and retired soldiers in the State have been struggling to pay medical bills despite having a healthcare scheme.
The beneficiaries were brought under the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) established in 2003. The scheme empanelled private and certain government hospitals for free treatment. However, over the past several years, hospitals have been withdrawing from the scheme. During COVID-19 pandemic, several beneficiaries were told to pay for treatment upfront by the empanelled hospitals.
A beneficiary under regular treatment in an orthopaedic hospital in Anna Nagar was told last year that the referral letter from the poly clinic in the Island Grounds premises would not be entertained. Another 64-year-old beneficiary, who was under treatment at a private hospital in Manapakkam for the past six years, was told to pay for the procedures when he was admitted last September. It set him back by over ₹2 lakh. Two of his friends, retired jawans, had surrendered their ECHS card and opted for a monthly medical allowance of ₹1,000.
His daughter was told that she would have to pay upfront as the hospital was not empanelled. The hospital raised bills for ₹1.70 lakh, but the ECHS would be reimbursing only half the amount. “Under the ECHS, all we were required to do was get a signature from the ECHS officer-in-charge and the commandant in the military hospital and submit the bills to the empanelled hospital,” she said.
The retired beneficiaries are unhappy as the poly clinics have stopped physical examination of patients citing the pandemic. “In the past two years I have spent ₹2 lakh. The poly clinic asks us to go online but senior citizens like us are not comfortable with that,” a beneficiary said.
Jason Peter, a veteran member of the Tamil Nadu Rajya Sainik Board, has written to the Chief Minister citing details received under the Right to Information Act from the Ministry of Defence. It said 34 empanelled private hospitals and the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital had withdrawn from the scheme.
He said in 2015-16, while Kerala generated ₹166.12 crore in terms of bills, of which ₹154.98 crore was approved, the Tamil Nadu ECHS generated ₹65.75 crore and ₹56.05 crore was approved. In 2020-21, while in Kerala ₹200.99 crore of the ₹233.69 crore generated was approved, the claims in Tamil Nadu to ₹60.4 crore of which ₹50.45 crore was approved.
Mr. Peter added that both States had a similar beneficiary population: Kerala has an ESM population of 1,75,872 and 62,010 widows, while Tamil Nadu had 1,28,077 ESMs and 64,925 widows.
He appealed to the Chief Minister to write to the Union Government “to make a suitable and sufficient one-time correction and prevent such aberrations in future”. He has also suggested allocating a certain portion of corporate social responsibility funds for treatment for the ex-servicemen under the ECHS.