Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 27 Keralam Health Minister K Muraleedharan on Sunday hit out at Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Pinarayi Vijayan, alleging that the public health sector of the state was destroyed during the last 10 years of LDF rule.
Muraleedharan was responding to Vijayan’s allegations, a day ago, that the UDF was weakening the public healthcare to benefit private hospitals.
The CPI(M) veteran had also alleged that government hospitals in Keralam were facing an acute medicine shortage.
Rejecting the allegations, the minister claimed it was the previous LDF government which destroyed the public health sector and gambled with the lives of the ordinary people to benefit the private hospitals.
Muraleedharan claimed that when the UDF government came to power, the health department had a debt of Rs 2,575 crore with the state-run Kerala Medical Services Corporation Ltd (KMSCL), which handles medicine procurement, having a liability of Rs 900.
He contended that it was the Left government which spent Rs 45 crore on purchasing unnecessary equipment, medicines and PPE kits and took commission.
“Now, it costs Rs 40 lakh to destroy these useless items,” the minister said in a Facebook post.
Besides that, the Left government started construction of buildings in every corner of the state by giving contracts to people close to them and then the work was abandoned after pocketing the commission, he alleged.
He further claimed that the condition of the completed hospital buildings was even worse as they had countless issues including leakage.
There are countless problems like deterioration and leakage, he said.
“The UDF government and the Health Department are currently undertaking a mission to complete the half-finished buildings, appoint the necessary staff and make them useful for the state,” the minister contended.
On the issue of medicine availability in government hospitals, Muraleedharan claimed that the situation was much better now than during the time of the LDF administration.
“More medicines are now available with KMSCL and Karunya as compared to this period last year,” he asserted.
The minister said that many medicines procured during the last government’s tenure were found to be substandard by the Drugs Control Department.
“There will no longer be a situation where those who come to government hospitals, just because they are poor, have to take substandard medicines.This government is making serious efforts to ensure branded medicines are available to the people at a low cost,” he claimed.
Muraleedharan also accused the Left front of favouring party relatives, pharmaceutical companies, private lobbies and even starting private hospitals and diagnostic clinics near government hospitals and pushing patient to those establishments.
Vijayan on Saturday had also alleged that the UDF government was “deliberately” delaying medicine procurement to create opportunities for private hospitals to make excessive profits.
He had further alleged, without providing details, that the Congress had received crores of rupees in election funding from major private hospital chains and pharmaceutical companies.
The government was trying to push ordinary people towards private hospitals by weakening the public healthcare system built by successive Left governments, the former CM had claimed.
(PTI News)
