Air Vice-Marshal and war veteran S. Swaminathan raised the issue of poor access to medical treatment under the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme at an event organised by Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi at Raj Bhavan here on Sunday.
“We have plenty of problems which are actually going from…good to bad to worse. In Chennai itself in 2007, we had MIOT, SRMC and Global hospital giving us full services. Now subsequently, we all know MIOT and SRMC withdrew and Global Hospital gives only medicinal services,” he said. He also urged the Governor to resolve issues related to payment due to hospitals.
In response, the Governor said that he had earlier interacted with ex-servicemen and learnt about this issue. “Initially, when I got to know and made enquiries that the (Union) government has not released the fund, and as a result, hospitals have not gotten their dues cleared, so hospitals are reluctant to treat our retired soldiers and families. This seems to be a perennial problem. I met Raksha Mantri (Hon’ble Defence Minister) and requested him, and that point of time they had released some money, but it has to be addressed in a very systematic manner, so that the problem doesn’t arise,” he said.
