Rs 4,000 Cr spent on Aarogyasri; 16 new teaching hospitals coming up: Jagan

Speaking in the Legislative Assembly, he said YSR Aarogyasri's scope has been widened by increasing the income limit to Rs 5 lakh covering 95 percent of the state's population, and offering super specialty services from over 130 empaneled hospitals in cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore.

"Although the previous government tried to restrain the expenditures and left unpaid bills of Rs 680 crore to the network hospitals, the government cleared all those arrears and even included expensive surgeries like bone-marrow transplantation, heart transplant, and cochlear implants under Aarogyasri. In the last 29 months, nearly Rs 4,000 crore was spent on Aarogyasri and brought 2466 procedures under the scheme," he said.

Jagan said that 16 new teaching hospitals are being set up in the state besides revamping the existing 11 medical colleges. He said the government wants to ensure that every parliamentary constituency has one teaching hospital, one nursing college, and a 500 bedded super-specialty hospital.

"Even the tribal areas like Paderu will have a teaching hospital and five other ITDA's are going to have super specialty medical services. Besides these, the State government is taking measures to strengthen the health sector from the village level by developing 10,032 YSR Village Clinics, 560 Urban Health Clinics, 1321 PHCs, 52 Area Hospitals, 191 CHCs at a cost of Rs 16,255 crore", he said.

The Chief Minister stated that the government is revamping all government hospitals across the state and equipping them with the best infrastructure, along with WHO and GMP standard medicines. He said that private institutions are encouraged to set up super-specialty hospitals in the state. He said the government would provide land and offer complete support.

On COVID-19, the Chief Minister said that the state has tackled the pandemic effectively and conducted tests 3.02 crore tests. The state made rapid strides in developing infrastructure and facilities in controlling the pandemic. He said the state has 19 labs functioning round the clock. He said before the pandemic, there was none.

He said that Andhra Pradesh is the only state to include COVID and post COVID treatments under Aarogyasri. "Andhra is also the first state that came forward to take care of the children who lost their parents due to COVID. The government has deposited Rs 10 lakh into the accounts of each orphan," he said.

The Chief Minister said 100 percent vaccination of all those above 18 years will be completed by March 2022. "So far 3.4 crore people have been administered with single-dose and 2.39 crore have completed been fully vaccinated. The government had spent Rs 3648 crore on COVID treatment alone to lessen the burden on the public," he said.

Earlier, Health Minister Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas initiated a discussion on the health sector in the House