State govt draws flak as PGI stops treatment of Punjab patients under Ayushman Bharat

The PGI had on Tuesday stopped treatment of patients from Punjab. The state has not been able to clear dues of PGI due to premature termination of contract with insurance company providing claims under the Centre’s and Punjab’s Ayushman Bharat – Mukh Mantri Sehat Bima Yojana (AB-MMSBY).

Principal Secretary (Health) Ajoy Sharma told The Indian Express that the Finance Department would release an amount of Rs 100 crore on Thursday and the dues of PGI and other hospitals would be cleared and the issue would be resolved.

However, the government came under fire for not being able to take any action against those responsible for premature termination of the insurance scheme during former CM Charanjit Singh Channi’s regime. Also, it has not been able to float the tender yet for signing a contract with the new insurer. The PGI stopping treatment is being seen as a setback for the government already grappling with the health minister’s humiliation of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) V-C Dr Raj Bahadur. He was made to lie on a dirty mattress publicly. Later, he resigned stating that he was humiliated.

Sources said the file pertaining to the floating of tenders had reached Health Minister Chetan Singh Jouramajra after getting clearance from the finance department.

Punjab’s 45.6 lakh beneficiaries of AB-MMSBY have been without any health insurance cover for the past seven months as the previous Congress-led government had in the state ordered premature termination of contract with the insurance company during its regime.

The “immediate termination” had come in December 2021, leaving the beneficiaries, requiring medical attention, to fend for themselves or just leave the treatment midway. The termination of the contract took place on December 29, 2021. O P Soni was the minister for health at that time. The agreement would have otherwise come to an end on August 18, 2022.

While terminating the contract, the previous government had said that the company was not paying claims on time.

The opposition hit out at the government, as Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said that the government should hang its head in shame over refusal to admit patients from Punjab by the PGI.

“Any government would feel sorry over such situations that you lose trust of institutes like PGI for chronic default that it has refused to admit patients,” he said, adding that “it is shameful on part of the AAP government in Punjab that it could afford to splurge Rs 37 crore on advertisements in first three months, but could not pay Rs 16 crore to PGI for treatment of patients”.

“This is the symptom of complete collapse of the system,” he said.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) also took on the government for “miserably failing to deliver”.

Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, SAD spokesperson, asked Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to tell Punjabis why patients were being turned away from hospitals. He said it was shocking that patients were being turned away from the PGI and Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, here because the AAP government had failed to clear dues of the institutions vis-a-vis the Ayushman Bharat Mukh Mantri Sehat Bima Yojna. He said the government seemed imperious to the suffering of patients from Punjab visiting these prestigious institutions despite claiming that the health sector was an area of primary focus. “Needy patients are not only being refused treatment by prestigious institutions here but even being turned away by hospitals across Punjab because of the AAP government’s poor record with regard to implementation of the scheme.”

The SAD leader said even while PGI had been denied Rs 16 crore and the GMCH Rs 2.3 crore, the AAP government had spent Rs 40 crore on advertisements alone in the last five months.

Leader of Opposition Partap Bajwa said that this should be an eye opener for Health Minister Jouramajra who is mindlessly holding the doctors responsible for the inadequacies in health and meting out shabby treatment to them in public. Instead he should do some serious thinking over arranging the release of funds to the quarters concerned to save the life of poorest strata of society.

The Punjab government stopped the Ayushman Bharat Yojana Scheme more than seven months ago and had stopped making reimbursements under the scheme to GMCH-32, GMSH-16 and PGI. Both GMCH-32 and GMSH-16 had stopped providing treatment to patients from Punjab under this scheme. Now PGI has been constrained to stop benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme for beneficiaries from Punjab over pending claims exceeding Rs 15 crore. But, according to a statement by the institute, patients from the state of Punjab can continue to seek treatment at PGI as routine patients by paying user charges or under other applicable welfare schemes, if so eligible, with effect from August 1, 2022.

The decision came into effect after the matter was brought to the notice of the State Health Authority (SHA), Punjab, and National Health Authority (NHA), repeatedly on April 1, 2022, May 13, 2022, and June 7, 2022. Later, the matter was even brought to the attention of senior officers of the government of Punjab.

‘Shocking and Shameful’: BJP

The BJP Wednesday lashed out at the AAP government and said that it should have spent money on paying dues to hospitals instead of spending it to fight elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

State BJP general secretary Dr Subash Sharma said that it was shocking and shameful that PGI was refusing to admit patients as the government had failed to clear the dues. He said that it was due to the gross incompetence of the AAP
government.