Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

VS distributes medical aid

Photo: S. Gopakumar

PATIENT WAIT: A visitor to the General Hospital waits for Chief Minister V.S Achuthanandan to arrive for a function to distribute financial aid on Wednesday.

Thiruvananthapuram: The government will examine how indigent patients suffering from cancer and renal ailments, the treatment of which are quite expensive, can be provided medical care free of cost or at least at a subsidised rate, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has said.

He was distributing the financial assistance to poor patients under the medical aid scheme being run by the Society for Medical Assistance to the Poor at the General Hospital here on Wednesday.

He said that the increasing cost of health care was putting many families into the debt trap. The situation that the poor cannot access medical care owing to lack of money should change. The government was in the process of implementing a popular health insurance scheme for all sections of society with Central assistance, Mr. Achuthanandan, said.

The Society for Medical Assistance to the Poor had been set up 10 years ago to extend financial aid to poor patients utilising Central funds. However, in the past 10 years, the Central assistance was provided only thrice and many applications for assistance from the poor had been pending with the Society. The LDF government had allotted Rs.5.20 crore towards the scheme in the last financial year.

Minister for Health P.K. Sreemathy, who presided over the function, said that clinical labs would be opened in all government health care institutions with the help of the Cooperation Department.

Patients are being provided assistance ranging from Rs.10,000 to 20,000.

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