SVIMS puts ESIC on oxygen

Tirupati: Vani Priya, the wife of an outsourcing employee Dhana Bhupati working in TTD was seen sweating in anxiety at the ESI hospital in Tirupati on Friday as she could not take her husband to SVIMS for dialysis as she was doing for quite some time.

This was because the tie up between ESI and SVIMS had ended on April 30, 2018. There are hundreds of such patients facing severe hardship for getting treatment because of the strained relations between SVIMS and ESIC. 

However, after 18 days, SVIMS has agreed to extend the MoU with ESIC putting an end to the deadlock. Earlier, SVIMS refused to render medical services to patients referred by ESI as the Corporation failed to clear the arrears from Nov 2016 which stand at Rs.8.57 cr now. After repeated representations in the last several months, they could not get these dues from the ESIC and decided to stop services from May 1, 2018. 

ESIC sources said that when they asked SVIMS to give consent to extend the tie-up for another year, they received only conditional consent that the bills should be reimbursed as per SVIMS tariff and not as approved by the government under Central Government Health Scheme.  

ESIC Regional Director in Vijayawada, B Ramakoti told The Hans India that no hospital should refuse treatment even if bills are pending. Clearing bills has been a different issue. “Though there was an agreement to follow CGHS tariff, SVIMS has been charging their own tariff which became a big problem. For instance, for Rs 2500 MRI scan they are claiming Rs 5000 which cannot not be paid,” said Ramakoti.

SVIMS also asked us to clear all the pending bills before two months and that future bills should be reimbursed without delay, he said. “Recently I got 11000 bills from which I cleared 3000 top priority bills. I cannot take any decision in case of large variations between CGHS recommended tariff and SVIMS tariff”, the RD maintained. He expressed hope that SVIMS will agree to the CGHS rates and extend the tie up.

In spite of this, ESIC issued an advertisement on May 12 inviting applications from other interested private hospitals to extend services as they felt that SVIMS will not come forward. The Tirupati ESI hospital on an average gets 350 to 400 out patients a day and it has 50 beds for in patients. 
On an average 400 patients are referred monthly to SVIMS for various diseases like cancer, kidney and neuro problems. 

Now patients are being referred to Vijayawada ESI hospital and if there is a need, they are referred other private hospitals, which causes severe inconvenience and physical strain to the patients and their attendants.

On the other hand, SVIMS Director cum Vice Chancellor Dr TS Ravikumar told The Hans India, that after deducting the recent payments of Rs 90 lakh, the outstanding dues stood at Rs 8.57 crore from ESIC, which was a huge amount. Going further into their financial crisis, Dr Ravikumar said that there has been ongoing problem of delays and denials of reimbursements from organisations.

While not considering the reimbursement owed for the current two months, the outstanding dues are Rs.18.22 crore from NTR Vaidya Seva, Rs.1.5 crore from other organisation like Railways, RTC, SPDCL etc., in addition to the dues from the ESIC.

Also, SVIMS provides unreimbursed free care of nearly Rs 20 crore every year. The Director said that during the last two financial years, SVIMS drew out Rs 35 crore from its reserve funds to bridge the annual budget deficit. 

Approximately Rs10 crore is yet to be paid to vendors for purchases during March – May 2018. The implementation of 7th PRC for faculty will add to the burden by another Rs10-12 crore. Due to which most of the reserve funds are depleted and SVIMS cannot use donations to specific purposes such as Sri Balaji Arogya Varaprasadini Scheme for bridging operational deficit.

But, at last in view of the greater good of the patients, SVIMS agreed to extend the MoU for another year but will review it at the end of two months and will reserve the right of annulment of the MoU if outstanding payment is not released by then.

By V Pradeep Kumar