T-Congress Castigates Government On Health Spending

Leader Of Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council and senior Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir today charged the State government with remaining criminally negligent and indifferent towards the government hospitals and public health in the State.

Speaking to the media today at the CLP office, Shabbir Ali demanded that the government release a white paper on the actual spending on the health sector.

He said that some 30 persons had died in Khammam due to dengue, five patients had lost their vision after cataract operations in the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital, and five pregnant women had died in Niloufer Hospital because of lack of proper government supervision in State-run hospitals, and asked what happened to the government's promise of setting up one general hospital and one super-specialty hospital in each constituency.

The leader quoted reports of UNICEF and CESS that 35-45% of pregnant women were subjected to Caesarean operations in Telangana's private hospitals as against the norm of 10-15%, and said that investigations proved that through these Caesarean operations the private hospitals had looted Rs 1,500 crores. The State government was however shutting its eyes to the untoward happenings, he alleged.

He also added that PHCs in the State were in a very bad condition, with almost half of them having no doctors and no drugs.

He also faulted IT & MAUD minister K Taraka Rama Rao for announcing actress Samantha as the "Handloom Ambassador of Telangana", and lamented the contracts in infrastructure projects being given to Seemandhra leaders ignoring Telangana contractors.